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=== Clerk notes ===
=== Clerk notes ===
:''This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.''
:''This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.''
*'''Clerk note''' Assuming the case hits 0/8, it will be archived as rejected due to the mathematical impossibility of acceptance. '''[[User:MBisanz|<span style='color: #FFFF00;background-color: #0000FF;'>MBisanz</span>]]''' <sup>[[User talk:MBisanz|<span style='color: #FFA500;'>talk</span>]]</sup> 22:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


=== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/7/0/0) ===
=== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/7/0/0) ===

Revision as of 22:54, 5 January 2010

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Character list merge   5 January 2010 {{{votes}}}
Chabad movement editors   5 January 2010 {{{votes}}}
Climate Change Probation   2 January 2010 {{{votes}}}
Climate Change   30 December 2009 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Venezuelan politics 25 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: World War II and the history of Jews in Poland Motion (orig. case) 21 June 2024
Amendment request: Durova Motion (orig. case) 12 July 2024
Amendment request: Suspension of Beeblebrox Motion none 10 July 2024
Clarification request: Desysoppings none none 12 July 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration

Character list merge

Initiated by Zyrxil (talk) at 02:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Zyrxil

This morning I found that Jinnai had merged a large amount of character pages and character-related articles for Hunter × Hunter into the preexisting List of Hunter × Hunter Characters.

At first I didn't understand this was intentional editting and not just vandalism, so I reverted the changes. He later reverted them back explaining it was intentional, and he felt the pages were too detailed and should all be on one list. I asked on his talk page to revert the changes as it created an extremely large article, the rationale for doing so was faulty, and because there had been no discussion. Several hours later, I checked the status of the articles and found them still merged, with simply tags added that a Merge was Suggested, with notice that it was being done on the List's talk page.

At this point, I again reverted the changes and made a sharper point of my disagreements on the talk page. Jinnai's response has been to counter-revert again, claim it had been discussed, and request all affected pages be locked from editting...in their changed state. To me, it seems Jinnai seems to be uninterested in any real discussion and is simply going forward with unilateral action. I don't see anything other than arbitration will get him to stop him steamrolling over other contributors in his spare time.

Statement by uninvolved party TheFarix

I strongly encourage that the Arbitration Committee decline this case as quickly as possible. At it's core, it is a content dispute that should be resolved by further copyediting and trimming of excessive plot information, particularly removing one-off or incidental characters from the list. However, Zyrxil apparently doesn't see that as a valid option. —Farix (t | c) 13:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Party 3}

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/7/0/0)

Chabad movement editors

Initiated by IZAK (talk) at 07:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that outside commentators on the COI page have been informed
Confirmation that outside admins who have commented have been informed


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by IZAK

A serious ongoing discussion about WP:COI violations by pro-Chabad editors remains unresolved in spite of a number of admins intervention, see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/User:Yehoishophot Oliver. Some have already suggested arbitration [4]. Other editors very familiar with Judaic issues on Wikipedia have voiced their own independent opinions, 11 so far, namely Users RK (talk · contribs); Joe407 (talk · contribs); Yoninah (talk · contribs); Jmabel (talk · contribs); Redaktor (talk · contribs); Yossiea (talk · contribs); Shuki (talk · contribs); Nsaum75 (talk · contribs) and diplomatic instructions to the pro-Chabad editors from DGG (talk · contribs); Avraham (talk · contribs) and SlimVirgin (talk · contribs).

The issues mainly revolve around the WP:OWN and WP:WAR defenses attitude of 4 pro-Chabad users at this time who expressly edit in a fashion that protects the Chabad movement’s POV and they resort to WP:WAR, WP:NPA and WP:LAWYER to protect their turf in key articles such as Chabad messianism and Chabad-Lubavitch related controversies they fight tooth and nail to keep out and control comments and edits the movement dislikes. The comprehensive complaints against them with diffs, going so far as calling to block them or at least to restrict their aggressive and obstructionist tactics, are at the COI discussion:

  1. User:Yehoishophot Oliver's pro-Chabad POV editing and diffs
  2. User:Shlomke’s pro-Chabad POV editing and diffs
  3. User:Zsero’s pro-Chabad POV editing and diffs
  4. User:Debresser’s pro-Chabad POV editing and diffs

Instead of answering to the complaint the pro-Chabad editors have resorted to multiple violations of WP:NPA and obfuscation, going so far as to open their own frivolous not-to-the point red herring complaints that so far no admins have taken seriously at:

  1. Tendentious editing by User:IZAK
  2. User:IZAK's POV editing, violations of WP policy and diffs

Additional concerns about the direction the pro-Chabad editors are taking are expressed at:

  1. Why Wikipedia should NOT become just another Chabad website
  2. IZAK's Warning
  3. A query

The discussions are at a total impasse and the matter has been developing for a number of years, but have now boiled over following a series of AfDs that resulted in the merging or deletion of 5 out of 6 very minor topics concerning Chabad, but the situation over-all has been effecting many members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism and others who do NOT adhere to the official teachings, beliefs and policies of the Chabad ideology, but while not being opposed to it, who wish to edit and write about it in a more open and critical fashion from all points of view befitting an independent encyclopedia without being harrassed.

Therefore the situation is such that arbitration is the only choice, and following that there should be an official policy guideline stated for Chabad-related articles and pro-Chabad editors and users as exists for those about other tightly conformist groups such as applies to articles about Scientology and the LaRouche movement as examples. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sarah

I will expand on this when I have more time, but as a preliminary statement, I support the arbitration committee examining this case. The dispute has taken up a massive amount of space on COIN and has now spread across to ANI and it seems to be way beyond the ability of the community to address adequately. There is bad behaviour and very blatant NPA and CIVIL violations flying from both sides, very lengthy arguments and bickering which show no sign of ending and requests from admins to cease the incivility and personalising the dispute are ignored or rebuffed (see [5] for example). I don't know if accusations of COI are with merit but I do believe that there is merit in concerns about the behaviour of editors in this subject area and that the community is unable to address the dispute adequately. So I endorse the request that the Committee accept this case to examine the behaviour and input of all parties. Sarah 11:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Debresser

As I have stated in my first response (timewise) to the COI/N thread, I definitely have a POV towards Chabad, since I have been an adherent of this respected world-wide religious movement in Hasidic Judaism for approximately 19 years. Everybody has many POV's, and I am not an exception. Nevertheless I try, and I think with success, to refrain from making POV edits when editing on Wikipedia. I can show edits that clearly prove I am doing a very good job at that. Without claiming to be flawless, I think my edits are generally of acceptable-good quality. Including in the cases mentioned in/alluded to in the COI/N thread. Obviously, as any Wikipedian editor in good standing, I would have no problem with a third-party assessment of my behavior in this issue (or any other issue connected with my behavior on Wikipedia).

At the same time I think that any and all accusations of WP:COI and "conspiracies" are void. Such accusation may stem from insufficient understanding of the workings of this organisation (if it even may be called such). I also think that User:IZAK has been motivated largely by his own POV on Chabad-related issues, both in his recent posts on talk pages and noticeboards, as well as in his own edits regarding Judaism-related articles. In addition, his posts related to this issue have been quite belligerent in tone, which has been an additional reason for me to doubt his objective assessment of those issues.

I can not answer for the other editors being accused, whom I do not know in real-life. As to myself I can only say that I was not in need of a reminder of our POV guidelines. In conclusion, as I stated in this edit to the COI/N thread, I think that a general reminder of our POV guidelines to all five involved editors would be enough to consider this issue properly dealt with at this stage. Debresser (talk) 11:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

Comparing Chabad to Scientology is neither helpful nor accurate. Nevertheless, if adherents to certain religious beliefs dominate any articles about those beliefs to prevent any scholarly criticism from being added, that's a problem. On the other hand, if skeptics add non-scholarly criticism, that's also a problem. If editors cannot agree to work together collegially, then ArbCom should take the case. The community is poorly equiped to deal with teams of editors who protect each other and obstruct the formation of consensus on esoteric topics. There simply aren't enough editors interested in such topics to counterbalance those with belief-driven agendas. Jehochman Brrr 14:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To the involved editors
If this case goes to arbitration, chances are good that some or all of you will be sanctioned. Is that the result you really want? Wouldn't it be better to play nice with each other and take your content disagreements to mediation instead? We can't force you to use mediation. That's a choice you need to make voluntarily.
To Guy
If it looks like Chabadniks have been linkspamming, then WP:WPSPAM may be interested to hear about it. Jehochman Brrr 22:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

I'm going to repeat something I've said elsewhere. The number of links to chabad.org appears to be out of all proportion to the significance of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. Many articles on topics related to Judaism in general but on which Chabad does not have a recognisably separate view, have links to pages on chabad.org. Over 1,000 links. An example: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport contains a link to "fight or light", an editorial by Yanki Tauber, who I do not think is a widely-cited authority. I brought this up some years back when it was pointed out to me during discussions over management of links to a site for a traditionalist Catholic website, an analogous situation since there, too, was reasonably neutral and even interesting content but by authors with no obvious authority outside the field of traditionalist catholicism, so apparently neutral information was presented but by a source of unknown authority and in the context of a great deal of rather biased information supportive of a fringe movement within the Catholic faith - Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive56 (section: chabad.org) has a record of this discussion.

Discussions of Chabad on the noticeboards if anyone's interested. Guy (Help!) 17:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jmabel

I do think it would be good for the arbitrators to take this up. I believe that Chabad/Lubavich and their views are becoming disproportionately represented in articles related to Judaism, and I don't think that the answer is just that people associated with every other tendency in Judaism need to be here pushing equally hard. I don't think people will be able to work this through without arbitration. - Jmabel | Talk 18:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Atama

I am not an expert on Judaism, I have no real-life ties to any part of the religion and no opinion of various sects or philosophies within Judaism, and frankly not enough knowledge to form any opinion. To be honest, I've never heard of Chabad on- or off-wiki before the conflict of interest noticeboard complaint was issued, and I haven't had the need, time, or desire to learn anything about it since then. I am only involved in that I am a regular contributor to that noticeboard, and I've seen religion-based COI complaints raised multiple times. In my opinion, which is an opinion backed up by the majority of people I've seen commenting on that same board, religion is rarely a cause for a COI complaint, nor should it be. Nor should race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. If a person has a close connection to a religious organization (a particular church or temple, for example, or perhaps a commercial entity that supports a religious position) then such a claim may be valid. But discriminating against editors because of their religious beliefs should be a practice avoided by Wikipedia.

I made that assertion at the noticeboard, and I'll repeat it now. I asked IZAK whether or not any of the parties he complained about were promoting specific Chabad web sites they were known to be affiliated with, or displaying other clear conflicts of interest and he stated that they were not. I feel that the COI complaint was without merit and it was unfortunate that it caused so much undue drama at the noticeboard.

Having said that, there may indeed be an unbalanced amount of pro-Chabad POV being presented by certain editors. I reviewed a few of the initial examples that IZAK gave, and found little to substantiate his claims of POV-pushing or conspiracy. But there was a lot of uncivil pushback from the "other side" in the noticeboard discussion, including a characterization from Debresser that IZAK's complaints were "insane" which was supported by Zsero who called him "hysterical". Most of the other editors in the discussion seemed to be able to keep things civil.

Essentially, there may be some validity to POV complaints, no validity to COI complaints, and a number of problems with personal attacks and a general lack of civility. -- Atama頭 18:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Party 7}

Clerk notes

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

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

  • Accept. I normally demand more pursuit of dispute resolution options, as arbitration is the last resort. However, indications that a matter cannot be resolved at the community level are a consideration as well. I am convinced that this matter requires the attention of the Arbitration Committee. I believe the community has had difficulty in parsing the topic and the behavior of involved editors. I also believe that arbitration, reputation of the process considered, would produce significantly less confusion, consternation, and drama overall than kicking this back to the community. I would see the scope as conflicts involving Lubavitcher topics, broadly construed, and the related behavioral issues. There are a number of conduct allegations that need to be examined, sorted out, and provided with a final determination. This is not inclusive of the broader Hasidim topic area, except as Chabad-related issues have been a focal point. Similarly, it is not inclusive of the broader conservative (small "c") Judaism topic area, except as above. Vassyana (talk) 16:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept I would have preferred more DR, but there's something we probably need to look at here. SirFozzie (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. There's some indication of severe behavioral concerns, and what links are provided above don't indicate that the community is having, or will have, much success in dealing with this. Hersfold (t/a/c) 17:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've sifted through the COI/N subpage and read all statements here in detail but, try as I might, I cannot find anywhere in them a basis on which I could recuse. However, I'm more concerned than my colleagues with the lack of formal dispute resolution (i.e. not noticeboards) to date. Is there a reason that a conduct RFC surrounding the COI and POV-pushing accusations would not be expected to clarify this matter somewhat? Steve Smith (talk) 21:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Climate Change Probation

Initiated by GoRight (talk) at 09:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by GoRight

Ryan Postlethwaite was included as the proposer, closer, and implementer of the sanctions. ChrisO was included because of his efforts to tag various articles based on the Climate Change Probation (CCP). DGaw, ZuluPapa5, and Thegoodlocust were all included because they too expressed objections to the implementation of these sanctions.

If ChrisO or any of the others who expressed objections wish to remove themselves as involved parties I have no objection to their doing so. They were all included as a courtesy given their existing involvement as indicated above.

I assert the following:

  1. As the proposer of these sanctions, it was inappropriate of him to close the community discussion thereof. This should have been done by a neutral party.
  2. Since the discussion was inappropriately closed they should not have been implemented.
  3. A discussion on a topic as important and far reaching as this requires that all members of the community be allowed to participate. I believe that this has not been accomplished in this case for the following reasons:
    • The discussion was closed after less that 48 hours which is insufficient for this matter.
    • The discussion took place over a holiday period in which many people affected by these sanctions may have been away from their computers and been completely unaware that such a discussion was even taking place.
    • To the best of my knowledge at this time, the discussion was not advertised at any appropriate community wide venues.
    • To the best of my knowledge at this time, the discussion was not advertised at any of the topical areas affected by these sanctions.

I do not doubt Ryan's good faith in this matter, however, given all of the reasons cited above I seek the following:

  1. The existing implementation of these sanctions should be halted until such time that a proper community consensus can be demonstrated.
  2. Any actions already taken as a result of these sanctions should be reversed.
  3. Any actions being pursued as a result of these sanctions should be dismissed. (Full Disclosure: There is currently a request for enforcement against me under these sanctions which can be found here.
  4. The discussion of these sanctions should be reopened and allowed to proceed for an suitable amount of time not less than one full week.
  5. The discussion of these sanctions should be prominently advertised at all of the major articles to which they will be applied.
  6. The discussion of these sanctions should be prominently advertised at all appropriate community-wide venues such as the village pump.
  7. The consensus, or lack thereof, for any sanctions should be duly established and recorded by a poll (!vote) specifically dedicated to that purpose based on a clearly defined and articulated set of controlling language for any sanctions which are to be imposed.

--GoRight (talk) 10:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tony Sidaway

It seems to me that Ryan Postlethwaite has only done with a brief and relatively harmonious discussion what the Committee would have done at much greater cost in terms of months of bickering by all parties on workshop pages. All or most of the uninvolved supported this, and at least half of the involved parties did too. About half a dozen different alternatives were discussed and support finally consolidated around a variant of the tried-and-tested Obama probation.

I suppose that the Committee could have a discussion among themselves and decide whether Ryan acted precipitately. Then I suggest they pass a couple of motions. The first motion would endorse the probation. The second motion, depending on the feeling of the Committee, would either thank Ryan for his superb mediation of one of the most intractable problems on Wikipedia, or wave the Waggy Finger of Disapproval at him for acting too quickly. If it's that bad he could be forbidden to work on global warming articles ever again. Oh wait... --TS 10:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lar

Procedural note, shouldn't this be a requested motion or requested temporary injunction on the case request just below, rather than a new case request in its own right? Just a suggestion, not a bar to actually doing the right thing, whatever that is.

I find myself in very strong agreement with Tony. GoRight seems to be throwing up every roadblock he/she can think of. Finding fault with this on procedural grounds seems a bad approach. The community has acted more decisively than it usually does. (I fervently wish that this is the start of a new trend) That calls for applause and action to support this by community members. Not roadblocks. I urge rejection of this case/motion/temporary injunction.

To GoRight: Internalize what many people are telling you: Your approach isn't working well and you need to up your game. ++Lar: t/c 15:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mathsci

This meritless request should be rejected by ArbCom. GoRight's actions on WP, however, here and in connection with the closely related RfAr below, should be carefully reviewed by ArbCom, if that case is opened. GoRight appears to be trying to throw a spanner in the works and tie ArbCom up in knots. This is the wrong approach. Mathsci (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Jehochman: some things on WP are very case-sensitive, e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GoRight. Mathsci (talk) 05:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Uninvolved Spartaz

This just looks like wikilawyering designed to thwart the community consensus - i.e deliberate disruption to prevent us clearing up this contentious area and clearly meriting a long block as a reward. To paraphrase Henry II "Can no-one rid us of this disruptive editor?" Spartaz Humbug! 15:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If there was a real consensus, it seemed pretty weak to me. I only found out about the discussion after it had closed so my only ability to participate is at the appeal level. No doubt others are just finding out about it now. TMLutas (talk) 04:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ZuluPapa5*

I am sickened by the poor faith expressed above in ArbCom and in GoRight's efforts for civil resolution (eds approach with PA, in the pejorative use of "wikilawering"). GoRight is meticulous and his actions are in the interests of a better community. He is not abusing the process, he is seeking for a fully fair process. The article probation enacted was well meaning; however, it avoided the careful deliberations that are normally afforded to an ArcCom action. Unfortunately, the poor start now requires ArbCom attention for remedy. There are several unique issues in the project which will require focus on "NPOV disruptive teams" to produce good content, which the current sanctions inadequately address.

In particular, attention to the Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary_sanctions must be included for general sanctions to be effective in this project. Sincerely, Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 16:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Continuing concerns
The recent General Sanction events at:
Offers little faith that General Sanctions and ANI appeal can adequately address concerns about "multiple editor" disruptive teams. Here the patience awarded User:GoRight, as the complaining editor was treated with "vexatious" "frivolity" for his peaceful and good faith effort to address team disruptions. The simple answer from General Sanction and ANI admins was they don't want to hear this and will quickly invest large amounts of time to punish folks for trying their patience, ironically as a "waste of time".

ArbCom must be left to answer this case. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Response to others

Yes, Tedders original orginal concerns below for refusal to bend to any consensus could be addressed better in the warnings and sanctions. The purpose being to achieve a NPOV, where the "N" means "neutral" as opposed to "negativity" by suspected owners possibly controlling a POV in these articles. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 01:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

Ryan Postlethwaite has proposed a route to resolving this long-running issue at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change, see also the request below. This looks to me like a good example of the community trying to resolve a dispute by methods which have been used successfully in other areas. The discussion around Ryan's proposal is largely civil and productive. There's no real dispute that Ryan is as uninvolved as anyone's going to be on this one, I don't think he's ever edited a climate change related article.

GoRight does not seem to like this proposal, presumably because he thinks it will be dominated by editors and administrators who accept the dominant scientific view and thus deliver the wrong version. He may be right about that, though he's not exactly given it a chance to run (I proposed a review after a month).

The only reason for taking this case, in my opinion, is if the arbitration committee decide they have no faith in the community's ability to handle this dispute and don't want to let them even try - or, I guess, if the committee have just had enough of GoRight and want to address his behaviour here and now, but there again I see no reason why you'd want to do that instead of allowing the community to at least try to resolve the problem. Guy (Help!) 16:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Troed

I'm not of the opinion that there was a consensus reached nor that questions regarding clarification were properly responded to before this was enacted. Thus, references to "the community" are flawed. I've further objected since it's my belief that this solution is going to make things worse, and that we're already seeing the effects of that, instead of better. I think the current ArbCom request is the proper way forward, or at least a proper community consensus reached for other types of sanctions. Troed (talk) 16:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • @JzG : This is my real name, my only wikipedia account ever (since 2007) and while I might not have spent the same amount of time with other articles I've edited (there has simply been no need - no controversy!) during that time I strongly object to being described as a single purpose account. It's however the second time in two days I've seen this and I'd really like to know what I would need to do/show/prove. I might misunderstand some of the finer details of Wikipedia workings however, I thought "uninvolved" here meant that I wasn't named as a party. Troed (talk) 16:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGaw

I agree with Tony that Ryan is to be commended for his efforts to resolve ongoing challenges in the global warming pages; passions clearly run hot there, of late. I do, however, have significant concerns that this proposal was implemented without real consensus, and on its possible negative effect on the community. I concur with GoRight's concerns above, which I have noted on Ryan's talk page and elsewhere [[15]].

With all due respect to Tony, the process was "brief and relatively harmonious" because most of the people who might object in good faith were unaware of it before it was declared a fait accompli. Tony himself proposed that the proposal be implemented within one or two weeks. It was instead implemented in less than 48 hours, over a holiday. Now that the holiday is over, a total of five objections (including those of GoRight and myself) have been noted at the discussion page.

With all respect to Lar, the community has not acted more decisively than it usually does. A small subset has acted decisively without consulting the rest of the community. That would appear to run counter to the principles on which Wikipedia is founded.

As an aside, I would also note that this proposal does not address one of the concerns raised by Tedder in his/her original case, that of ownership. Without opining on the merits of those concerns, I have seen them raised repeatedly by multiple editors, and it seems to be one of the issues that has raised the level of heat within these articles. Not only does Ryan's proposal not address those charges directly, I am concerned it could both exacerbate and obscure the problem.

While I chuckled at Tony's ironic comments above, I do not believe that the Committee should "wave the Waggy Finger of Disapproval" at Ryan. He clearly acted in good faith, and his proposal is entirely reasonable if supported by actual consensus within the community. I would like to see the Committee reopen Ryan's proposal for an appropriate period of comment--Tony's original suggestion of a week or two seems fair--so that consensus can be sought. I would also hope the Committee accepts Tedder's case so that it can, among other things, consider whether there is any merit to the charges of ownership.

Finally, as regards Spartaz charges of "wikilawyering", I respectfully disagree. Wikipedia has policies that are well-established, and an existing dispute resolution process that is open to everyone, both guided by consensus. Those policies and processes exist for a reason, respect due process, and are designed to serve the interests of both Wikipedia and the community. They should be properly used. --DGaw (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Observation by TenOfAllTrades

I note that whether or not Ryan's actions were supported by the letter of policy, they are certainly in line with the spirit. I would also anticipate that if the ArbCom does decide to open up the inevitable mess that RfArb/Climate will inevitably become, it will be necessary to impose article probation on the entire topic area as an interim measure anyway. EEML took just over three months from start to finish, and there's no credible reason to believe that this new case (if accepted) would require any less time. Leaving the unfettered Wild West atmosphere in the climate change area is not an option.

Some single-purpose editors won't be able to be nearly as unpleasant and disingenuous, nor will they be able to freely allege ridiculous conspiracies or use up their full daily edit-warring entitlement. My sympathy is very, very, limited. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions by Jehochman

  1. Wikipedia:Request for comment/GoRight is a logical next step in dispute resolution if editors feel that GoRight has been stonewalling or protecting sockmasters using recycled accounts.
  2. This request for arbitration should be merged with the one below. They are the same issue.
  3. Unless uninvolved editors are complaining about the general sanction implementation, the complaints by involved editors carry little to no weight and appear to be tendentious. Jehochman Brrr 18:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I have nothing to add here - there is a clear consensus for the probation at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 19:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Hersfold

How do I possibly have a conflict of interest here? I don't edit climate change articles and I quite frankly don't care about them - I was merely trying to stop potential bickering and a massive case for the committee that would most probably have come to the same end result. Simply because I started the discussion doesn't mean I have a conflict of interest. I couldn't care less if they probation was implemented or not - it's not going to make my life any different at all as I won't be spending much time enforcing it. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 19:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheGoodLocust

Ryan's proposed solution to the articles will be as effective as bloodletting is for curing HIV. The WP:OWNers of these articles must be salivating at the prospect of how much easier it will be to ban dissenting editors. That being said, it is only natural for this process to go through because nobody wants to take responsibility - passing the buck is always easier than taking responsibility for it.

You can only cram so much down the toilet before it clogs up and you have a real mess on your hands. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge

I, too, am concerned with enacting this proposal. The discussion on the admin page seemed to focus exclusively on sock puppets and POV-pushing from AGW skeptics. I do not see how this proposal will address POV-pushing from AGW proponents in articles about the controversy. I posted my concern here[16], but was pretty much ignored. I reposted my concerns again[17] and instead of a thoughtful discussion, the proposal was almost immediately enacted. How was this proposal enacted without first achieving consensus and without any real discussion about one of the biggest problems we're facing here? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved TMLutas

I'm currently involved in trying to, once again, bring global cooling up to date, specifically to include some sort, any sort of discussion of the advocates of global cooling of the past decade. Past rounds of obstructionism have led me to skip normal WP:RS rules and not try to include non-peer reviewed sources such as the BBC, or even the Nature magazine notice of the $10,000 bet on global cooling between two Russian scientists and a UK scientist. It would have just been pointless as the team that reverted them before would just revert them again based on their private interpretation of the rules. Such private interpretations, when held in the service of AGW principles tend not to be sanctioned in my multi-year observation.

Currently I've got nobody admitting that they really don't want the section in, just constant nit picking to the point where what should be a 3-4 sentence section has generated more words than the entire global cooling article text. The idea that nobody is discussing global cooling in the Internet space covered by WP:RS does not pass the laugh test so it's understandable why they aren't doing it.

There have been some honest attempts to improve the text but constructive, the overall discussion isn't. I fully expect that when the section eventually goes up it will be quickly reverted and, if I am not very careful about how I do this, my account will be sanctioned under these proposed rules. The actions of the pro-AGW editors who neither openly declare that they don't want the section added, nor propose texts to improve the proposal so that they withdraw their objections are not new, not just happening on this discussion page, and are a long-standing irritant that negatively impacts the reputation of the Wikipedia project. TMLutas (talk) 05:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) Literaturegeek

I think that with the community article probation remedy being passed that both cases should be dismissed. The community article probation should be allowed a chance to see if it works. I believe that it will certainly help matters but whether it will be enough to resolve the major issues on climate articles remains to be seen. If the community intervention fails to work then perhaps arbitrition can be sought at a later date say in a month or two's time. I think that those who are wanting arbitrition want help with "taking down" editors who they perceive rightly or wrongly of violating WP:OWN and those opposing community sanctions oppose the sanctions because they feel that they interfere with the WP:BATTLE against WP:OWN editors. I also think that the WP:OWN issues are worsened by the abusive use of sockpuppets and other WP:DISRUPTive tactics employed by some of the skeptics. Which side is more right than wrong in this battle? Who knows. If any quick remedy is needed from arbcom I still feel it should revolve around somehow "enforcing" or compelling editors to respect WP:NPOV and WP:DUE. I think that the state of certain articles on climate change simply fuel the anger of the "skeptical side", for example wikipedia draws parallels between climate skepticism and holocaust denial on these articles denialism and climate change denial. This is not exactly WP:NPOV to say the least and appears more WP:SYN and WP:SOAP and is a shame on the supposedly neutral encyclopedia. I would also submit that this comparison would be a fringe and not to mention offensive viewpoint. This is an example of one of the reasons for this endless drama and WP:BATTLEFIELD.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 08:20, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth I feel has interpreted the situation well.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can see why arbitrators may want to accept the below case though as this drama is very entrenched and complex and I am personally "skeptical" myself that community intervention such as article probation alone is enough to resolve it but I could be wrong. Best wishes to all. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) DGG

I don't work on these articles, though (or because) I have a very strong opinion on the subject. From what I see, there are problems with POV pushing from one side, and ownership from the other. It is possible that a remedy like this will work, though it will depend on the willingness of some editors to realise that they are over-involved, and accept that they should not be trying to influence the process--something I think is unfortunately not very likely. But the way this was done over a short holiday interval is far from doing justice to the opportunities of members of the community to participate. Perhaps this might be a virtue in terms of getting a decision, but it against the open spirit of Wikipedia discussions. The discussion should in all fairness be reopened, and I couldn't care less what side of the debate that will favor. If the proposal is good, it should go into operation only after wider consensus. If it does work, of course, the logical next step would be to abolish arb com as unnecessary, because the community will have shown it can do things better and simpler. DGG ( talk ) 22:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by ChrisO

For the record, the submitter of this arbitration request was indefinitely blocked this morning by Viridae (talk · contribs) for "Wikilawyering, wasting the community's time, forum shopping, inability to edit collaberatively, general waste of time". AN/I comment is here. I suspect this may make the request moot in any case. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/9/1/0)

  • Recuse, per my recusal on the requested Climate Change case, currently below. Steve Smith (talk) 17:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline this "clarification", depending on results below. SirFozzie (talk) 18:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline No previous attempts to resolve and arguments that some procedure wasn't followed to the letter aren't persuasive. Shell babelfish 21:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as this: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change is the way to go, the community has a solid chance to resolve this without arbcom becoming involved. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, while agreeing that Ryan should not have closed the discussion (on whether to implement community sanctions) so early, and should have asked someone else to close it. Am also uncomfortable with the references some (such as Tony Sidaway) are making to this as mediation. Mediation is something different to community-imposed general sanctions (which is more akin to the community setting up arbitration-style remedies and enforcement pages). Mediation tries to resolve an issue, whereas the current set-up is trying to decide who the worst offenders are and exclude them from the topic area, which is promoting a battleground mentality (that was, admittedly, already there). Finally, I would hope that uninvolved editors are genuinely looking at the allegations (in the similar arbitration request below) that there is "POV-pushing from both sides of the AGW divide" - I fear that if there is more POV-pushing from one side, that this will attract all the enforcement attention, and the POV-pushing by the other side will be ignored. Essentially, enforcing by trying to assess whether someone is a POV-pusher is fraught with difficulties, and can be gamed. The first step should be to exclude those who are egregiously incivil and those who refuse to work with others. Only then can POV-pushing be addressed. Trying to address POV-pushing in a heated atmosphere only leads to those who are more adept at framing enforcement requests successfully "taking opponents out". First reduce the heated atmosphere (with gradated warnings and then blocks), and then let the calm and collegiate editors discuss the content. Carcharoth (talk) 06:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline per Rlevse and Carcharoth. KnightLago (talk) 16:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline this request, which is based at it's core on a procedural point best challenged at a lower level of DR Fritzpoll (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, its just a procedural disagreement, and it looks like the community still has a reasonable chance (and is on the way) to resolve this whole issue. - Mailer Diablo 12:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, no need to the Committee to review this at this time, per the above. I do agree that Ryan should not have closed the discussion he opened, per standard practice to avoid conflicts of interest. Hersfold (t/a/c) 18:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response to Ryan: Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply you had any such conflict of interest, as you're right, that's not really the case here. My comment was just explaining that COI is the general motivation behind that practice (not the guideline itself, since it deals solely with editorial issues, but the general spirit of that guideline). Hope that clears things up. Hersfold (t/a/c) 19:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline - While there were some imperfections in the development of this process, the fact is that this is a worthwhile community-based attempt to address a longstanding issue in an impartial and reasonable manner. I would like to see it given time to work past its first steps; if there continue to be problems a few months down the road, we can re-examine. Risker (talk) 02:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Climate Change

Initiated by tedder (talk) at 02:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Article editors (> 30 edits in past 90 days)
(third pass at involved parties)
Top talkpage editors (top 5, out of 76 over 30 edits in 90 days)
Pass 1 and Pass 2 users here

...The following are below the "550 edits" threshold but were originally named.

Administrators (involved in an admin capacity)

* Editor/admin has been notified about this case.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Tedder

In most pages related to climate change, editors have shown an astounding amount of editwarring, ownership of talk pages (!), tendentious editing, and a refusal to bend to any consensus. Some of the articles include these:

This issue, besides consuming an amazing amount of space on their respective talk pages, also spill over to WP:RFPP, WP:AN3, and WP:ANI on a very regular basis. Here are some examples that are currently live on ANI, plus the last one, which is from my own (admin) involvement in the situation.

Note the list of users involved is a partial list; it's a list of major editors I quickly identified and is not intended to be comprehensive. Some of these editors are certainly "overinvolved", others may not be.

Response to Jayron32
Including Ten* was an accident, but I included you on purpose because you've made admin actions related to these pages. tedder (talk) 04:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(reply x2) I'm not implicating anyone- I just did a survey of editors and admins who are involved, not editors who are in the wrong in some way. tedder (talk) 04:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(reply x3, I think) Probably worth taking this off the case (ie to a talk page), but you're just included for having made an admin action, not for doing something wrong. In other words, you're an admin who has been involved in trying to help settle disputes. tedder (talk) 04:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response to arbitration, as of this edit
I'll go through and weed/sort the list of editors by involvement- I request 24 hours to get this done. tedder (talk) 04:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I modified the above editor/admin list. It turns out 'narrowing' it to editors with more than 30 edits among those four pages (eight, because I counted the talk pages) in the past three months is too large of a list- 233 editors. I chose an arbitrary "550 combined edits" threshold to capture the top dozen editors. Honestly, it's arbitrary, as there are many editors below that limit that should be included.
I also manually tabulated admins who had protected those articles or talk pages in the past three months and put those stats up also. I did not look at other admin actions (blocking), nor did I correlate their involvement on talk pages.
For completeness, 178 editors made > 30 talkpage edits, 93 editors (presumably the same ones) made > 30 article edits. Let me know if I should notify the users and admins that I've added to this list, or if you'd like me to share the results and/or slice/dice them in some way. I also didn't try adding any other articles to the list- I suspect my list of four articles is incredibly incomplete. tedder (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Guettarda

Thanks for context on Boris/arritt. It makes me think something is Wrong with the automated system I used to capture top contributors. I'll re-evaluate, I suspect it looked at all edits to a page, not the last 3 months. tedder (talk) 15:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Third pass at involved parties

My code to find involved editors was incorrect- I believe it was finding editors involved 90+ days ago, not 0-90 days. Some interesting things surface here- some editors are very involved on the talkpage, some are also involved on both. Why am I simply using statistics rather than diffs to specific edits? This is simply to open a case, not to drag out specific evidence.

For instance, it shows that User:ChrisO has almost 10% of the total edits to articles over the past 90 days, and User:Tony Sidaway has 9% of the total talk page edits in the past 90 days. Even ignoring content, that shows a degree of ownership.

This is from looking at four articles only- if expanded to other articles, it would probably be more telling, especially once all the spillover to ANI, AN3, and RFPP is shown. tedder (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TenOfAllTrades

I'm not entirely sure why I'm listed as a party – of the five articles listed by Tedder, I've edited only one (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and made only two edits ever – but here we go.

That said, I freely acknowledge that my lone two edits were reverts. The first revert was of a minority POV-pusher with a week-old account, who has been edit warring since he arrived and had already been blocked once for his conduct at these articles, including making exactly the same edits: Marknutley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), User talk:Marknutley#Blocked. My second revert was of GoRight, who 'undid' my edit without explanation or discussion of any kind [18] after being encouraged to get involved by Marknutley: [19]. (Marknutley, at his 3RR limit for the day, contacted GoRight to seek instructions on how to file a – inaccurate – 3RR report on William M. Connolley. I need not remind the ArbCom of GoRight's past history with global warming topics in general and William Connolley in particular.) GoRight promptly reverted me a second time, at which point I declined further involvement.

I would endorse a 1RR limit on climate change articles, as well as extended semiprotection of the articles in this area. There seems to be a painful influx of blog-driven agenda-pushing, and it is making it impossible for moderate, more experienced editors to get anything done. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) Literaturegeek

I have never edited any climate change related article but I have recently been following the drama on and off on article talk pages in recent months after the climate change email hacking incident became global news. I have read various disputes on a number of noticeboards over the years. There are intense emotions regarding this subject, I have been tempted to inject myself as a voice of reason into discussions but due to the abuse and character assasinating I have always felt repelled from doing so. Basically there are two extremes. One side wants any and all criticism labeled as fringe and deleted. Typically ad hominen attacks and comparing apples and oranges tactics are employed to shoot down their opponents by comparing them to AIDS denialists, antiscientists and homeopathic believers and so forth instead of addressing what needs to be addressed and that is the sources, applying standards such as WP:DUE and WP:NPOV. Here is an extreme example of extremist viewpoints of an ip editor comparing skeptics to the holocaust.[20], [21] Then from the other extreme accusing man made global warming advocates of being part of a global socialist agenda.[22] One extreme trys to violate WP:UNDUE by giving undue weight to minority viewpoints, using primary sources to debunk secondary sources and so forth and even promoting inappropriately conspiracy theories. I believe the fringe noticeboard is abused as a place to "take down" opposing views. Disputes are often personalised, with allegations of being paid by the oil companies or paid by the carbon tax industry. I think that most (but not all) editors who are a voice of reason and who are willing to set their viewpoints aside and follow WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV have been chased away by the intense and abusive atmosphere. The result is we are left with extremists on both sides. I would therefore urge arbcom to accept this long-over due case. It is my view that for this dispute to be resolved that it needs to be seen as primarily an WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV issue as well as behavioural issue as well. Minority viewpoints involving scholarly disagreements and controversies should be given low weight, not simply edit warred out of articles mercilessly. If arbcom sides with one side over the other this dispute will be perpetuated for goodness knows how long and will never be resolved. What is needed is calm to be restored so the climate related articles become attractive for people with level heads to edit without being attacked. I hope that my post gives some insite and in the end helps to resolve this dispute.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If one is to look at these people's articles, Richard_Lindzen#Expert_witness_fees_and_expenses, Fred_Singer#Consulting, they describe connections to oil companies and rightly so, but when conflicts of interest related to making money from carbon trading is cited it is edit warred out of articles leading to page locking.[23], [24],[25] Why should one COI be allowed but another type of COI be edit warred out of articles? Then here we are again with this article,Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change and Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident locked due to a content dispute where both sides have dug in their heels.

John Quiggin I am aware of no controversy in the public or amongst scientists about passive smoking but see from the article page there was some industry distorted scientific studies but I think comparing apples and oranges in and of itself is not scientific to prove a scientific point. There is controversy over some of the data used by climatologists, Stephen_McIntyre#The_Hockey_stick_controversy and here Hockey stick controversy and you will see that there are legitamate scientific disagreement about the statistical data voiced by groups such as American Geophysical Union and the American Statistical Association. I am not an expert in climate literature and I am not here to define the "truth" of climate change. I agree that the mainstream view must be given the most prominance, of course, but criticisms shouldn't be edit warred out of articles; well sourced controversies and scholarly disagreements should be included following policies such as WP:DUE and WP:NPOV, that is all that I am saying. I just saw this pop up on my watch list and felt appealing for the policies of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE could resolve this dispute. I still believe that WP:FRINGE is often being misapplied or sometimes even abused as a way to get around WP:NPOV which is a policy and WP:RS; I have seen it done on other articles unrelated to climate change. I shall bow out gracefully now and hope that my posting helps encourage some common sense solution to this dispute. Best wishes to everyone here and have a happy new year! :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

John Quiggin I never said those agencies were opposed to man made climate theory. What I meant was what I said above but to be clearer, that there is some scientific debate over flaws over some of the statistical data. This is part of the problem, I make a small comment in a neutral posting about this wide ranging dispute and then it is taken out of context and fringe is brought up again. This is one reason people are intimidated from voicing any sort of view on any aspect or controversy whatsoever on these articles. Good luck and I wish you the best in this arbcom.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant violations applicable to this dispute. WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:DISRUPT, WP:OWN, WP:BITE, WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:GAME, WP:TAGTEAM, WP:SOAP, WP:WAR, WP:CIVIL, WP:CABALS, WP:SPA, WP:SOCK and probably many more.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beeblebrox

I have been only marginally involved in these matters, and then only in an administrative capacity. While I was the one "holding" the protection on Scientific opinion on climate change I was astounded at the amount of arguing over minutiae on the talk page. The sheer volume and pace of it would be off-putting to most editors that do not wish to make editing and arguing over this group of articles the sole focus of their Wikipedia activities. Several of these articles have had to fully protected repeatedly to stop edit warring, sometimes over the pettiest of details. I believe, as do many others, that climate change will be the defining issue of the coming years, and as such these issues are likely to persist for a very long time. I also suspect there may be some users involved here who have conflicts of interest, of either a fiduciary or philosophical nature, that have clouded their judgement in these matters. As such, I believe all articles related to climate change/global warming/carbon emissions etc should be put on indefinite probation, with sanctions for those who edit disruptively. I would add that this problem is coming from all sides, from those who feel climate change must be addressed now to those who believe it is a hoax, and everyone in between, and as such general sanctions rather than targeting specific camps or individuals seems the best solution. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to the general criticisms of who is a "involved party" and who isn't: Although there are several persons, including myself, who are not directly involved in the actual content disputes, that does not mean their opinions on the matter are somehow invalidated. In fact, I would suggest that those who have not directly participated in edit warring would tend to have a more neutral perspective on the matter because they are not personally involved. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party John Quiggin

I haven't been editing these pages for a while, but I would like to put a view directly opposed to that of LiteratureGeek above. In scientific terms, these pages call for a straightforward application of WP:FRINGE. There is no difference, in terms of the unqualified position of all relevant scientific bodies between this issue and those of the examples given by LiteratureGeek or, to take one with which I am most familiar with, having participated in an almost identical Wiki debate, Passive smoking. In both cases, the relevant scientific bodies are unanimous in their view, and the antiscience position emerges from a set of thinktanks (almost 100 per cent overlap between the two), a handful of dissident scientists (high overlap) and a body of public/political opinion driven by wishful thinking. The only difference is that the antiscience position on the issue is held by a large and influential body of political opinion in the US and some other English speaking countries. User:GoRight self-identifies with this body. And this difference is only a reflection of the Global Viewpoint problem. AIDS denialism is, or was, similarly politically influential in South Africa, and if a large proportion of our editors came from SA we would no doubt have the same kinds of problems on articles on this topic. The correct solution is to enforce WP:WEIGHT and explicitly label views opposed to those of all major scientific communities as WP:FRINGE in all articles concerned with the facts of the matter. Antiscience views belong in Politics of global warming and nowhere else.JQ (talk) 04:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to LiteratureGeek who says " you will see that there are legitamate (sic) scientific disagreement about the statistical data, with groups such as American Geophysical Union and the American Statistical Association." What do you mean by this? Both organizations endorse the scientific consensus position as do all national academies of science, major scientific organizations etc. The opinions of non-experts such as you and me, both regarding the substantive truth of AGW and the balance of opinion in the scientific literature should carry zero WP:WEIGHT here. We have authoritative statements from the most reliable sources - anything else is automatically WP:FRINGE and needs to be treated as such, just as it is on topics like creationism where the antiscience viewpoint isn't supported by such a large group of editors. JQ (talk) 07:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party, Wikidemon

I have not participated much on climate change articles so I have very little by way of evidence, opinion, or concern as to whether this matter is suitable for arbitration at this time. For the record, although there are some harsh but fair words exchanged between me and User:Rd232 on the AN/I thread cited in the arbitration request, I have no beef with RD232 and as far as I am concerned that issue is closed. We've since had an open and supportive discussion on our respective talk pages and I think we're in agreement, including being comfortable with where we agree to disagree. I'm not so upbeat about the involvement of some of the other editors, as I've seen considerable edit warring, incivility, argument over process, a rush to accuse people of bad faith, and a breakdown of communication among those with different opinions, all during my very brief and peripheral participation here. It's been quite a ride - I've been hauled before AN/I, threatened with a block, and called a climate change denier and member of a "clique of right-wing editors" perpetrating "one of the most blatant acts of bad faith I've ever seen on Wikipedia",[26] all for making an earnest but perhaps hasty attempt to edit content. Wasn't it less than a year ago that stood here accused of being part of the liberal cabal? *sigh* When you dip your toe in the water and something bites you, that's probably a good sign to find a different pond. Even if I did have some constructive ideas to add to climate change articles, or help to offer ArbCom here, it's just not worth subjecting myself to that.

I do wish everyone the best and hope for a productive outcome, though. Per a funny little template I've been working on lately, Smiley Sorry!

I'm hoping to step back and spend a little more time with my funny little template, and less time making other editors feel bad or allowing them to get to me. Best, - Wikidemon (talk) 04:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayron32

Like TenOfAllTrades and Beeblebrox, I am unsure why I have been named as party to this case. I agree with the filing, in that I have observed widespread conflict along a wide spectrum of Climate Change-related articles, and it is getting very out of hand. This is exactly the sort of thing that ArbCom needs to step in to work out, as I think that both sides have failed to reach any thing resembling resolution on this, and it has been non-stop for weeks now.

All of THAT having been said, I am still unclear on why I am named a party here. The sum total of my involvement in these articles is as follows:

  • I protected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about 7-8 hours ago as a result of a request at WP:ANI. I had not edited that article before, indeed I had never even watchlisted it before the request, but upon reviewing the history, I thought it prudent to enact protection to discourage widespread edit warring.
  • I closed a discussion at WP:ANI that was getting out of control over the insertion of a POV tag by Prodego on the article Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. The discussion was going nowhere (IMHO) and was looking to decend into some incivil territory, so I thought it prudent to close it. Others disagreed, and it was reopened. I got a bit pissy on my talk page over it, and I am sorry about that.

Beyond these two actions, I have not once, to my knowledge, ever made a substantive edit to any article or talk page or discussion regarding climate change or any article thereof. I would appreciate it if the person who started this thread could elaborate on which of these two actions made me involved in the dispute as a party. --Jayron32 04:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to tedders reply to me: So, being an uninvolved admin who acted in good faith on a request to stop an edit war makes me in the wrong here? How so? Can you elaborate on where my protection of that article was against any policy or guideline or where making a single admin action makes me party to this dispute? I just want to know where that went wrong so that I can avoid misusing my tools in this way in the future... --Jayron32 04:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to tedders reply to me replying to him replying to me (I think I got those all). So, if I am involved, perhaps you can tell everyone which side of the debate I am involved on. Because I certainly don't know, and it would be enlightening to see where in this dispute my actions show me as being on one side or the other? --Jayron32 04:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply yada yada tedders blah blah blah: OK. Cool. I just misunderstood the nature of ArbCom cases. I've not often been named as a party to a case, indeed only once, and I've not seen where someone had been named as a party to a case where the originator of the case was not asking for some direct sanctions against said parties. I was thinking of "involved" as meaning what the WP:INVOLVED policy says 'invovled' means, which is the only context of the use of the term involved has come up. I apologize for being so confused here, since you were using an oft-used term at Wikipedia in a context it is not often used in. Sorry, it's my bad. Carry on. --Jayron32 04:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JohnWBarber

Dammit, I agree with everything Wikidemon said as far as general points (I'll assume he's right about the specifics regarding himself). Even though I lean toward the climate-is-changing side and made a few edits which have stuck in the article, crap like this [27], from User:Scjessey, who was topic banned from another political area by ArbCom in the past, and POV-pushing, gaming-the-system crap like this [28] [29] caused me to walk away from the article. Any editor who actually wants to collaborate with others to create an NPOV article would be crazy to touch Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident -- or any politically controversial article on Wikipedia. I suppose it's not always easy to see just what a piece of crap a POV-pushed article is unless you know something about the topic -- but believe me (or do some research yourself), it's a piece-of-crap article that makes Wikipedia look pathetic and does no service for our readers. This will continue to be the case with many (maybe most) articles on controversial topics until ArbCom gets serious with some of these editors, not just Scjessey, who have been POV pushing for some time, with many complaints brought up, usually not dealt with (or treated with kid gloves) by arbs or admins. You know, you don't have to put up with POV pushers: And if you're worried that enforcing NPOV editing policy with sanctions is too distasteful, you could always enforce the behavioral violations around the POV-pushing incidents with punctilio: You point out when they violate policies on edit warring, incivility, gaming the system, battleground behavior, talk-page behavioral standards, NPA -- and clip their wings with severe topic bans and blocks. Or continue playing Whack-a-Mole with repeat offenders as if they're not harming the encyclopedia much. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 05:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mackan79 wrote: An improvement would certainly require something delicate, in which somehow agenda-driven SPAs were kept at bay, and the trained scientists were made to be more judicious in their interactions. Appoint a small committee of admins to continue monitoring the pages. "Delicacy" here involves, basically, an ability to deliver blocks and topic bans with prudence, polite diplomacy and warnings at first and light treatment for minor violations and initial violations (and a recognition that there's a difference between heated debate and outright incivility). Doing this requires ongoing knowledge of just what's happening to the articles and on their talk pages, and that probably means that we need someone who has some interest in the general subject of science or politics or both but who isn't so gung ho on this particular subject that he'd want to take sides. I've seen two admins with all of those skill sets: Tim Vickers and MastCell (whose past participation on the talk page shouldn't matter). An ongoing monitoring committee, which can watch the situation over time, would do a better job. This is the only way I can see that Wikipedia is going to be able to deal with articles that attract massive numbers of editors debating how to cover a very controversial topic. If ArbCom doesn't appoint a committee and takes this case (and I recommend that ArbCom do both), you'll take two or three months, probably not address some of the bad actors, and the article will just get taken over by one POV side or the other while everyone is too tired to want to do the one thing we should be, need to be doing -- civilly discussing differences of opinion over how to cover a topic in an encyclopedic fashion and coming to consensus on it. THAT is what success would look like -- not having an ArbCom case exhaust everyone and leaving some POV faction in control of an important [30] article. Just because the matter isn't likely to come back to ArbCom for a while won't mean you've solved the problem. Mackan correctly notes that the problem extends beyond SPAs to long-term editors (although he's not nearly severe enough in addressing their ongoing, intensely bad behavior). I've left an additional comment on the talk page. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 14:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Unitanode

I just wanted to state that like Wikidemon -- but to a lesser extent -- I dipped my toe in editing a BLP about one of the skeptics (I don't remember which one right now). I tried to work with Connolley and Peterson, in an attempt to deal with some potentially problematic BLP stuff, as well as serious NPOV concerns. Connolley was very antagonistic, even changing and removing talkpage comments from me and a couple of other editors. After that experience, I watched in discouragement as all balance was removed from the article about the Emails, and anyone who attempted to apply NPOV was shouted down on the talkpage. I stayed out, based on my previous experience with some of the editors involved, but the climate articles -- and the behavior surrounding them -- are becoming a bit of a shame to WP. Some type of remedy needs to be passed to fix this, and to provide guidance to editors at those pages. UnitAnode 06:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ChyranandChloe

I'm not listed as an involved party, so I'll be brief. Dispute resolution has not been exhausted. There are no ongoing edit wars, no serious personal attacks, no RFC/U, few if none administrative actions. A RfC entails outside opinion, the two listed on GW are mainly continued discussions from editors already involved.[31][32] The ANI case is more descriptive. The discussion lacks actionable, verifiable, reasonable substance. Talk page guidelines and forum are the real issues. I think this is silly sensationalism, but acknowledge that a case to set precedent on talk page mechanics would be good. Controversy can be attributed to holiday rush and climategate, it can be brought up again if it doesn't cool down. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum, I apologize to the arbitration committee for a factual inaccuracy in my previous statement. There has been considerable degree of administrative action as provided by Tedder, since I actively track Global warming and Scientific opinion on climate change which are not protected. I would also like to add my statement of confusion, since some of the involved editors listed do not engage in discussion across all the pages listed and that this request may be the culmination of many disputes not one. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum, I am replying to Roger Davies's request for "examples of egregious conduct". The fact of the matter is that reprehensible behavior, such as personal attacks and WP:SOAP-like vandalism can be removed, and the perpetrators temporarily blocked (WP:PBAGDSWCBY). While discussions are not entirely civil, they are far from uncivil. Realize that there is a difference between civil and reasonable, while the first simply prescribes what an editor cannot do, the second prescribes how to deduce the dispute by which Wikipedia has not strict guidelines. Article Probation, seems to be a solution, although it seems to early to determin success. ChyranandChloe (talk) 00:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GoRight

I shall make no statement here until I see a clear articulation of what the dispute actually is that Tedder seeks to have addressed. I certainly feel that there is plenty of room for improvement in the atmosphere on the GW articles, so to the extent that something to improve that might actually come out of this I am more than happy to participate.

I would suggest that Tedder should try to formulate a specific articulation of what the dispute is and what the specific results he would hope to achieve actually are.--GoRight (talk) 06:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Tedder's list of pages I would think that a couple of representative BLPs should also be included if this goes anywhere, Fred Singer, William M. Gray, Richard Lindzen, James Hansen, and Michael E. Mann are all likely to be representative candidates for controversy. I am not suggesting that you need to be redoing your analysis, nor am I suggesting that the all need to be included. It's just something to think about if you want to hit the trouble spots on the AGW pages. --GoRight (talk) 07:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on the Community's Climate Change Probation

Please note that I have raised objections to the implementation of these sanctions here and here. Consistent with WP:DR I am waiting for Ryan's response before proceeding. Depending on his response I intend to enter a new Arbitration request to deal with this matter as I believe Ryan's close and implementation are inappropriate given that he is the one that made the proposal, that the closure was premature given the duration and timing of the community discussion, and that the breadth of the community discussion was far too narrow given the significance of the sanctions being proposed and should have been advertised in appropriate community-wide venues for an appropriate period of time before being implemented. --GoRight (talk) 09:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to add Abd as a party to this case

It has come to my attention that Abd has been barred from participation here, and had his contribution removed, despite that fact that as his interim mentor I have given him my consent to participate owing to two primary points: (1) He was heavily involved in my RfC wherein he compiled and analyzed a lot of the accusations which were being made against me and in so doing gained a very significant amount of insight into the issues underlying this very case, and (2) he has in the past also edited GW pages and so has perspective to add to this discussion from that experience as well. I am quite confident that the lack of current edits in his history over the past 90 days is due primarily to his ban and not a lack of interest in these underlying issues. --GoRight (talk) 02:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to other editors
  • I will also endorse Literaturegeek's summarization of the prevailing atmosphere as being generally even handed and accurate. --GoRight (talk) 21:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC) Moved down from above for consistency.[reply]
  • @Guettarda: "Oh, and by the way - I'm not sure what sort of a time frame Tedder is using to pick the "top" editors, but whatever it is, it's far too broad if it includes an editor who hasn't edited (at least not under than user name) since May of 2008." - A most comical statement. I have no doubt that Guettarda knows full well that the editor to which he refers is also listed under a different name with more recent edits. (Diffs available upon request.) And he wonders why people call him disingenuous? His comment is clearly intended to deceive. --GoRight (talk) 09:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hereby endorse Arzel's statement as being an accurate representation of how the GW pages are being conducted. --GoRight (talk) 21:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Stephan Schulz: In response to your comments regarding socking, we should point out that the one-sided (or should I say apparently one-sided since the skeptics lack the Scibaby rubber stamp to run checkuser against the pro-AGW editors) nature of the issue is most likely yet another indicator of the problem with the GW pages. Why are people creating socks? Because Team AGW has been successful in squelching any dissenting views from the GW pages and banning those who insist that Wikipedia should present a truly NPOV version of reality but who lack the political instincts to keep themselves from being banned. You want less socking from the skeptic side of the debate? Allow a truly NPOV presentation of reality.

    The situation is so bad at this point that we are having edit wars over putting up the POV template which specifically highlights that it should be left up as long as there is an on-going dispute AND that its presence doesn't even mean that the article actually IS violating WP:NPOV but rather that it only signifies that a dispute exists and directs the readers to the discussion. Ironically, Tedder was himself caught up in one such dispute. And as a result of his actions there WMC began a scorched earth crusade against him to have him sanctioned for simply trying to do the right thing. Now WMC claims below that Tedder wasn't involved. Go Figure.

    The root of the problem here is that a great many people, and even neutral editors with Wiki experience who happen by as we see in their statements here, all agree that there is a valid NPOV dispute over many of these pages. Yet simply putting up a POV template is too much for Team AGW. When there is a dispute over the neutrality of an article the POV template should go up with no questions asked and anyone removing it before a consensus to do so has been demonstrated should be summarily blocked, IMHO. There's a actionable step that Arbcom can take to insure that minority views are not completely railroaded off the project. Without this protection the AGW proponents simply remove the tag and stonewall any efforts to put it up, thus removing even the tiniest hint that their edifice may be tarnished. I argue that it is this unrelenting demand that it be their view and only their view that prevails which is much of the source of both the socking AND the current problems in this area. --GoRight (talk) 22:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    "Re. GoRight: WP:SPI is open to all editors" - True, but not with the same rubber stamp lack of tangible evidence manner in which Scibaby investigations are "conducted". --GoRight (talk) 02:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I endorse the general spirit of MastCell's comment in terms of downplaying the drama if we are just going to end up with discretionary sanctions. I will also say that discretionary sanctions may on the surface appear to be a neutral solution, but in reality they are not. They are biased against a minority POV as well as against new editors. These discretionary blocks and bans will inevitably be disproportionately targeted at those groups who are least able to defend themselves. We all know that admins will be very reluctant to impose any sanctions on Team AGW members but will have no qualms whatsoever about slapping down the newbies and minority voices. The net effect, then, will be to simply increase the incentive to create socks or engage in other methods of circumvention rather than decrease it. The solution to the problem is to stop the suppression of legitimate points of view, not to give the suppressors an even bigger advantage. The latter may calm things down a bit by eliminating one side in the wars, but it will do nothing to achieve the neutrality we are supposed to be striving for. You will, in effect, be trading our principles for a little peace and quiet. That's not a good trade. --GoRight (talk) 22:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ("uninvolved") Awickert

4 bullets in 2 sections for rapid readability:

  1. Regarding civility and efficiency. Synopsis: Don't think RfAr can help.
    • I very much want the global warming pages to be more civil and productive
    • Civility on these pages requires not only the tough skill of polite online conversation between people who strongly disagree with one another, but also the ability to shrug aside consistent aggravation by sockpuppets, trolls and single-purpose accounts while trying to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. Arguments tend to spiral out of control as one insult "deserves" another and another.
    • I don't think an arbcomm "decision from on high" can create civility. No amount of legislation can make these talk pages more productive. What is required is a universal will to rise above unkind words and be the big person in each and every situation.
  2. Something that may help. Synopsis: Official clarification of quasi de facto peer-review requirement
    • One item that would help is extreme clarity in Wikipedia policy, especially with respect to sourcing. In particular, it would be nice WP:RS could clarify/officialize the quasi de facto peer review requirement for science on these highly-controversial pages. Very specific Wiki-legislation could pave the way for fewer arguments. I honestly don't know if this is an appropriate desire to come via arbitration, and suspect that it is something that should be done via other avenues.

Awickert (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by non-party Mackan79

It's too bad, but I am skeptical of what ArbCom can do in a case brought by a relatively uninvolved party. I'm used to seeing ArbCom step in where two or more people have come to their wits' ends with each other, and need arbitration. I'm less sure what ArbCom does when someone else says "hey, look at this mess here." Do editors have evidence? I've seen some things that concern me, but certainly I don't have any evidence.

That said, there is a real problem with the influx of socks and SPAs in this area, and at least partly as a result of this, the way in which new editors are roundly chewed up and spit out. In my view the biting goes further than is justified, which I say largely because there are very significant problems in these articles, and as such I think the energy spent fighting off new accounts would in many cases be better spent addressing the problems. Unfortunately when I see basically no one take such an approach, it's hard to argue that ArbCom should peel off the more militant long-term users, since very well this could end up just turning the articles over to the SPAs. What's worse, I think some of the more militant long-term editors are also very good editors, and while I suspect there are some bad ones, it is not clear to me how ArbCom could weed them out. An improvement would certainly require something delicate, in which somehow agenda-driven SPAs were kept at bay, and the trained scientists were made to be more judicious in their interactions. Good luck! Mackan79 (talk) 08:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A point of agreement with GoRight: Editors who edit war to remove the NPOV banner when it has been reasonably explained need to be treated much more harshly. I haven't seen it happening on these pages, but I have seen it on related pages where people are edit warring at length to remove the banner. It's the kind of edit warring that doesn't just create and exhibit immense bad faith, but attempts to remove any incentive to resolve the problems that are being raised. A stronger response to this is needed whether ArbCom takes this case or not. Mackan79 (talk) 07:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guettarda

On one hand, I don't see how a few RFCs on content issues scattered across, different articles involving different editors constituted "prior attempts at dispute resolution". A thoughtful editor can learn from a user conduct RFC, but not from an RFC on a page s/he isn't actively following.

There are real issues here. Tedders' protection of an article he was editing and Prodego's editing through page protection are the sort of thing that isn't helpful on pages when tempers are frayed. But the real issue revolves around the Climate Research Unit emails. It has produced a stream of people determined to "fix" Wikipedia's "liberal bias". Solomon's attack on William M. Connolley only exacerbated the problem. (See discussion here, for example). Not on one article, but across a slew of them. The underlying BLP issues also create problems - the involved scientists have been accused of "criminal" behaviour and professional misconduct, often by bloggers. Dealing with people determined to add material like that to articles only makes matters worse, especially when you get called "disingenuous"[33] for suggesting that the BLP policy applies to pages other than actual biographies.

I would be happy to see a solution that facilitated editing. But what solution? 1RR restrictions don't stop edit warring when there are a dozen editors on each "side". Restrictions along the lines of the Obama article probation might help (if people are willing to police the articles), but quite frankly the arbcomm is too slow and do much good here, and tends to be too much of a blunt instrument. Two months into the future we're probably wondering what all the fuss was about.

Oh, and by the way - I'm not sure what sort of a time frame Tedder is using to pick the "top" editors, but whatever it is, it's far too broad if it includes an editor who hasn't edited (at least not under than user name) since May of 2008.

@GoRight: Raymond is listed twice - as Boris and as User:Raymond arritt. Since he hasn't used the second account in a year and a half, the only way that Tedder would have picked up both accounts is if he delved into a lot more than 3 months of edits. If he had listed only one name, I'd assume he knew they were the same person. But he listed both, suggesting that he cast a ridiculously wide net. (I wasn't 100% sure if it was common knowledge that Boris and RA were the same person; I wasn't about to out him.) Guettarda (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on the "wide net" idea: Tedder lists WMC as having 3685 edits, which exceeds his total edits in the last 3 months by almost 1200 edits; Stephan Schulz's listed total of 2384 exceeds his total edits in the last 3 months by 850; UBeR, attributed 1843 edits actually has a total of 37 edits in the last 3 months and <100 edits in the last year. The only real, immediate problem with climate change articles dates to mid-November. Casting a net that probably goes back to 2007 (or earlier) makes no sense. Guettarda (talk) 15:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Coren - while I believe that the list of "involved" users is without focus, it also misses an awful lot of editors whose behaviour is problematic - the ones who refuse to assume good faith and poison the atmosphere, the ones who only show up when the articles are unprotected, edit-war for a bit, and then go silent. Honestly, if the committee wants to look at an area that's as broad as this one is (I'd guess ~50-100 articles) the list of involved editors needs to be considerably larger, not smaller. Which is, of course, why I think this isn't a problem that's better dealt with by the community than the arbcomm. Guettarda (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

This looks as if a blunderbuss is being fired at the problem. Too many parties, and the case stated in terms which are too general. Has anybody tried using the existing tools in the bag, like article parole and 1RR? Guy (Help!) 10:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Addendum: discussion at WP:AN (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Climate Change) centring around a proposal by Ryan Postlethwaite seems to me to have at least some chance of success. I would like to propose that we try this for a defined period, perhaps a month, and have a couple of uninvolved long-standing editors or admins summarise the issue after that period and decide (a) if a case is then necessary and (b) who the parties should be. Guy (Help!) 14:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by William M. Connolley

The list of parties needs to be fixed - Tedder is showing his lack of involvement in the basic disputes by errors in his list. Also, as previously noted, he has done it by historical trawling, not recent stuff.

  • RA *is* Boris
  • Tedder (despite being somewhat coy about his violation of 3RR) isn't a party to this case, he has no real involvement.
  • Adding signbot is just weird.
  • GoRight is a party.
  • Rdm2376 isn't a party.
  • Wknight94 isn't a party.
  • Stephan doesn't need to be a party twice over.
  • I can't see why Lar should be a party.
  • Beeblebrox isn't a party.

There are a variety of minor skeptics that ought to be thrown into the mix:

Whether they rise to the level of needing to be involved I don't know; that might depend on what arbcomm decides the dispute is about. I'm sure the more obvious ones will show up to give the obvious evidence.

It is instructive to look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Inappropriate editing of a protected page by Prodego. Here we have a simple case of edit-though-protection that ANI appears to be unable to resolve (just as it was unable to resolve Tedder's prior violation of 3RR and protect-favoured-version). This is a simple situation and yet something is preventing this from being realised.

If arbcomm thinks it can do better then perhaps it should have a go.

It seems odd to file this case without pointing to its obvious predecessor (you young folk nowadays have such short memories): Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2.

It also seems odd to file this without realising that some of this upsurge of nonsense is coming via the minor external right-wing press, e.g. [34] (reply: [35]) [36] (reply: [37]) who clearly haven't got a clue how wiki works.

JzG makes a good point about other options: 2/0 managed to tame Scientific opinion on climate change rather well.

William M. Connolley (talk) 11:06, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Moreschi

This is a waste of time. Too unfocused and generalized for arbcom to even think about taking. If there are specific allegations of severe misconduct against a small number of editors then a case should be accepted upon those terms alone. As it is, if this is taken, it will simply degenerate into one massive free-for-all (sorry, clerks) that will make the EE mailing list case look like a teddy bears' picnic. This we know from past experience. There is no reason to think that normal editorial processes (aided by community-run 1RRs and topic paroles if necessary) will not work, rough-edged though they may be at times.

As a side-note, this is a hot-button topic that's only going to get hotter, if you pardon the pun. Opinion polls show a growing disparity (even in fairly secular countries such as the UK) between the views of scientists (who largely accept both the reality and the mechanisms of global warming), and the views of the general public. For the purposes of Wikipedia, WP:FRINGE and WP:RS dictate that the former must prevail, but inevitably this will not happen without significant conflict. There's little we can do about this, but we need to recognise the fact.

It is also worth pointing out that I have done a few blocks here recently, nearly all Scibaby socks and other disruptive SPA accounts with tendentious tactics and suspiciously good knowledge of wikimarkup. Moreschi (talk) 11:15, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge

As a previously uninvolved editor, I think I can provide a neutral and unbiased assessment of the situation at least as far as the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article goes. Basically, we have three groups of editors there. One group wants to maximize the damage of the so-called "Climategate" controversy as much as possible. The second group wants to minimize it as much as possible - even to the point of pretending that a controversy doesn't exist. The third group just wants to write a good article in accordance with policies and guidelines on neutrality and reliability. I consider myself to be part of this third group. We've been able to deal with the first group though various forms of blocking. However, we have not be able to address the issue of the second group. Thus far, repeated reminders about policy (particularly neutrality and undue weight) have not worked. The issue was brought up at NPOV Noticeboard, and an uninvolved editor has agreed that the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article does not follow our neutrality policy. You can read the uninvolved editor's opinion here. But the 'minimizer' group of editors are still refusing to write the article in accordance with our neutrality policy. The issue was brought up (by another editor) at the WP:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-12-10/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident and you can read my comments there. I've only been an active editor of Wikipedia for about a year, but am shocked and horrified by the amount of POV-pushing from both sides of the AGW divide. While there are a subset of neutral editors who actually want to follow our neutrality policy, the two warring factions see Wikipedia as a battleground for promoting their own POV regardless of WP:NPOV. This is the first time I've ever made a statement to ArbCom, so I apologize in advance to any newbie mistakes I might had made. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reponse to Jehochman

AFAIK, that problem has already been addressed. The outstanding issue is that we have established editors who are refusing to even admit that there's a controversy in articles about the controversy. Jehochman, I've worked with you in the past regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories so you know that I'm no fringe theorist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

When I have some time I'll recommend ways to reframe this request to make it more effective. In general I think the entire venue of dispute needs to be reviewed by ArbCom. In particular we have a problem with recycled, banned users and single purpose, agenda-driven accounts, as well as off-wiki calls to battle. Jehochman Brrr 12:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In combating the onslaught of bogus editing, some established editors may have unwittingly violated the principle the articles are not owned by any editor. Both problems need more attention. I've made a brief attempt at administrating in this area, and caught fire from the partisans. ArbCom could help. Jehochman Brrr 14:24, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BozMo

Per GoRight: When we know which of the complicated issues this turns out to be I may need to be added either as a party or as an admin. However at present I would suggest this Arbcom request should be rejected out of hand unless any issue which Arbcom action could resolve is succinctly expressed. Global Warming alone is I believe the most edited article on WP (so Raul654 said). Fishing through a large number of articles of this history length seems to me better left to future historians. --BozMo talk 14:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Count Iblis

We have been able to deal with the problems on climate change related pages in the last few years by separating the politics from the science using content forking. So, there exists a page exclusively devoted to the (mostly poltical) controversy on climate change. In the last few months some editors want to change this and write about sceptical views in the main global warming article. However, the main article gives the scientificn perspective and can only very briefly mention the political controversy. Like any other articcle on a scientific topic, only peer reviewed articles can be reliable enough to be used as sources.

Another successful action that we've taken a few years ago was exercising a strict control over the talk pages. Off topic comments are promptly deleted or archived. This allowed us to prevent soapboxing by sceptics who come to the global warming page to write things like: "The climate scientists are all wrong." Since sometimes you can have people who have genuine questions, we've created a FAQ on climate change to which we can refer to when closing a discussion.

These measures have been very successful. Note that the main global warming page is a FA. Then consider the fact that there are quite a few of tendentious editors who are actually tolerated as we don't need to restrict them under the current self imposed editing rules. So, if we're going to change these rules, then this will inevitably lead to topic bans for quite a few of the sceptical editors, the article will be on probation like the Israeli/Palestinian related articles are and ArbCom will have a full time job supervising all the climate change related articles. Count Iblis (talk) 14:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Uninvolved Party Arzel

As some others I have been following many of the Climate related articles for some time, but not actively editing since it was obvious that all of these articles are being controlled by a group of editors to a large degree. With the release of the Climategate emails I have become more involved in some of the articles but it is obvious to even the most uninvolved editor that some editors will not allow hardly any dissenting opinion to their belief of AGW, and when they do the research and/or opinion is labeled fringe and discredited.

Dogmatic views are also held with regards to only the inclusion of Peer Reviewed research that meets some unknown level. All research that would present an alternative view to the dogmatic view being presented is disregarded at hand either because the author is not qualified, does not have enough peer reviewed papers, has a COI, their research has been debunked, etc. McIntyre, for example, has been published in a peer reviewed journal, and is probably the most well known skeptic scientist, yet his research is rejected at hand because he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't have enough publications, and isn't a climatologist, even though his paper is a largely a statistical analysis. A big part of this dogmatic view is the absolute refusal to include anything that would suggest that the MWP or the LIA were more than a local incident since the minimization of these two incidents is the cornerstones to the whole AGW movement.

In the "real world" WP is beginning to be viewed as a propaganda tool for the whole AGW movement. The Climategate incident has revealed a very nasty truth about the research that has been done and the attempts to quiet those that would disagree. Some, and probably many of those same people are editing here to continue that dogma only furthering the belief that all climate related articles are being manipulated, much like the data, to promote one, and only one point of view. The actions of William Connolley are noted in the press, yet dismissed as if nothing had happened, yet the appearance of COI on many articles should be impossible to ignore. Some of my earliest work at WP involved the definition of specific types of Ponzi Schemes, yet I was notified that I had a COI because I assisted on a website to track and expose Ponzi schemes on the internet. Compared to the apparent COI by several editors here, what I did was nothing, for one I would not financially benefit one way or the other, but at least one editor here, and probably others, stands to benefit from the continued dogmatic push that AGW exists and that there is not dissention from this. Arzel (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Updated Comment. This is exactly the problem going on with the Climate Change related articles. Someone brings up a published research paper into the discussion and it is immediately dismissed for some stupid reason. In this case it is "too new" even though the discussion was less than a day old. The control of these articles is simply unbelievable. Arzel (talk) 03:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@William Connolley. I have made no statement that I was neutral only that I was largely univolved until this time, please refrain from making such accusations in the future. Arzel (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Stephan Schulz

Climate change has been a contentious area on Wikipedia for a while, although it had settled down to a reasonable state. However, conflict has flared up again following the theft and publication of the CRU emails and subsequent milking of the event by the sceptic blogosphere and press. We are the target of an off-wiki witchhunt [40][41][42] with bogus claims (see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:William_M._Connolley_and_Global_Warming for a deconstruction). As a result, we see attacks like "human garbage" and "FOR 15 DOLLARS I CAN FIND WHERE PEOPLE LIVE". Moreover, one of the most prolific sockmasters has created more than 500 socks, 16 of these identified just yesterday, and there are additional cases of socking [43], [44], [45], all on the "sceptic/denial" side of the discussion. Even saintly editors will eventually run out of patience when they explain the difference between the Royal Society and the Heartland Institute as a scientific source to the 15th sock, only to have them edit war their POV in anyways and abandon the account for the for the next 10 "new" accounts.

I'm not sure if ArbCom can be useful here. I suspect the current level of disruption will settle down on its own, although the discussion will stay encumbered unless a way of dealing with the massive socking is found. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re. GoRight: WP:SPI is open to all editors.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re. Nsaa: Climategate has existed since November 22nd, most of the time as a redirect, for a short while as a content fork. See the page history. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Durova

It doesn't take much of a watchlist these days to see that global warming has become a hot dispute lately excuse the pun. It involves experienced editors who know how to walk the fine edge of policy and how to frame debates. A lot of short range debate has been happening (what constitutes a blockable edit war? what constitutes acceptable editing through protection?) without sufficient foresight to avoid the appearance of tendentious behavior.

The inevitable result is that good faith has worn thin. There's a real world political debate on this subject and it's not very far from the surface. Whether or not this case opens now, the situation shares a lot of traits with the leadup to the Obama arbitration. Unfortunately that means the editors in the middle who don't have a strong political view on the subject (or who set theirs aside) are getting pulled in both directions.

The best thing about this request is that it was filed by a nonpartisan editor. It's big and messy, which is typical of disputes that fester too long: it amalgamated. Although the size of it may seem daunting, the best long range choice for the arbitrators may be to accept the request as filed if they accept it at all. The disputants are experts at framing (social sciences) and there's a real danger of one side or the other attempting to begin the case on terms that prejudice its outcome and guarantee its return to yet another arbitration afterward. Be wary of measuring involvement based upon raw edit count: this is a real world hot potato and one does not need to edit a subject frequently to be tendentious. Durova390 16:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ZuluPapa5*

I support Tedder's statement "In most pages related to climate change, editors have shown an astounding amount of editwarring, ownership of talk pages (!), tendentious editing, and a refusal to bend to any consensus." And, I appreciate the effort he put into preparing this well intended ArbCom request, in addition to response folks have made. What concerns councenrs me is the resulting remedies in this case.

Scientific opinion on climate change (where Tedder blocked me and GoRight with WMC evasion), the page was tamed by self-restraining and remorseful editors who responded to 2/0 great efforts for peace. Yes, there should be administrative actions when editors are disrupting wiki. However, this issue may not be ripe for ArbCom action at this time. It is perhaps a serious warning for editors to reform themselves.

The productive path is to coordinate the articles with a Project Task Force. This offers hope that issues may be resolved in a Task Force before escalation. Forming a Task Force is by itself no simple cure, for overly aggressive or "owned" POV behavior. However, it provide a means for local governance, before polluting the notice boards with negativity and seeking higher dispute resolutions. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing Comments
GoRight makes a strong point in regards to the excessive Socks issue. Unguided and poorly treated editors encountering the highly experienced experinced folks in these articles can be driven to the dark ways of a Sock. This could be reflective of the way justice is being administered. I personally consider it bad form to escalate an issue without at least asking the offending party for permission first (its just civil that way). I suspect folks may be impatiently pulling out the weapons without attempting consensus from the alleged offenders. There must be a correlation between socks and bans. The banners have a civil responsibility to the offenders. Increasing technical measures may just hurt the whole community further. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 03:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Abusive conduct in my case
In my case, Tedder 3RR blocked me during a POV tag dispute User_talk:ZuluPapa5#3RR_warning, then a highly involved editor in the "war" attempted to have me banned and admits to "threatening" me with an RfC/U User_talk:Tedder/Archive_5#ZuluPapa5. I was acting to improve articles with content not meeting his owned POV. This is after the editor had trolled to remove my edits and AfD my articles in his own examples. Then, the editor goes on to harass me to add injury to insult [46] [47] [48]. Furthermore, this editor has an ArbCom history of abuse [49] and admitted conflicts in these articles [50].
After this passes and I track my BRDs [51], I then counted up over 80 instances of negative "no" and "not" talk between two editors [52] on a single article page, with no real content alternatives provided by them to move forward.
These are the tactics I am concerned about [53]:
  • Working together to circumvent the three revert rule
  • WP:NINJA editing
  • Consensus-blocking, continually challenging outside opinions, and acting as if they wp:own an article.
  • Reluctance to incorporate new sourced perspectives in an article.
  • Reluctance to work towards compromise
  • Harassment and intimidation tactics.
Suggested remedies are:
  1. Prohibition on block and ban nominations
  2. Prohibition on notice board escalations without objective consensus
  3. As a further remedy, the editor(s) may have taken this joke [54] to far and being harming wiki. There might be a need to restrict their topic self selection to [55].


Additional diffs: [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68]


Happy New Year wiki, may the new decade bring peace and NPOV. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to others
  • @Clerks, I was originally listed as an involved editor and notified as such. I declare my involvement in this dispute, please relist me here. In addition, when considering edit counts, please note these issues are prevalent in the Climate Change / Global warming project (not just a single article. Edit counts among the articles Tedder stated, may be appropriate.
  • @ArbCom, I've had time to review and appreciate your guidance articles. I will be on traveling vacation from Jan 10, 2010 to Jan 25, 2010. If this case is accepted, I will not be able to participate effectively during that period. I have faith a fair case could proceed without my participation; however, I would like you to consider holding it until I am able to participate. In addition, there are at least two existing cases which may be relevant in this dispute:
A new case here for "NPOV disruptive teams" in the project could be sufficient alone; however, it may be necessary to re-open the older cases as well. Guidance or comments here would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 19:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • @ChrisO - The examples you present for a long case may have excluded faith in the ArbCom to form their own view. I appreciate your effort to advance community sanctions based on an existing Obama issue example; however, the scientific expert (POV) issues and established ArbCom experience in these particular project issues, could bring meaningful benefit to wiki. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 06:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kim Dabelstein Petersen

I'm confused. The editors named in this case, seems to have been selected as the editors who have the highest editcount on the articles since the articles were created? Apparently they aren't selected for any particular conduct other than having edited the page or commented on the talk-page. That seems to me to be a rather strange selection methodology. For instance UBeR's edit count since October is less than 50. Raymond arritt is an account that has been abandoned since May 30, 2008. And Sinebot ?! Am i missing something?

I concur with Stephan Schultz's comments above, but i do want to propose that if arbcom should take this case, that it at least gets reframed, possibly into more than one case (CRU specific ; climate change articles generic), as the issues are different, and that the involved parties/editors be pruned and expanded to match this. (the involved parties list should be changed anyways)

Finally i will add that i found the solution that 2/0 has imposed on Scientific opinion on climate change has been both beneficial, effective and fair (so kudos here). Such a solution could be useful on articles where tempers have flared, and should be used more often, instead of the full-protection lock-down. The unfortunate aspect of this is the lack of administrators to do so. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tony Sidaway

As Lar has said, there is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Climate change discretionary sanctions proposal which looks set fair to resolve the problems by encouraging sysops to be more pro-active, along the lines of the Obama sanctions. It might be a good idea to hold off on arbitration while this proposal is discussed. If implemented as proposed, it looks likely to greatly alleviate the problems on these important articles. (updated) --TS 13:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MastCell

  1. Please don't accept this case unless its scope is clearly defined at the outset.
  2. Please don't accept this case unless you are prepared, at the outset, to do something besides just apply discretionary sanctions.

It would probably be best to apply discretionary sanctions by motion and revisit this in a month or so. Discretionary sanctions are clearly warranted, and their existence might embolden admins to get a bit more involved (on the other hand, sometimes I think they're just a crutch for admins who lack the community confidence that normally undergirds administrative decisions, but hey...)

I'm really not enthused about a case here unless you're prepared to hand out a bunch of topic bans, or some clear guidelines for dealing with single-purpose agenda accounts and sockpuppetry on the topic. The worst-case scenario is an inconclusive 3-month-long, 40-party steel cage match that results in a remedy of discretionary sanctions. So if you accept the case, please consider some sort of proactive approach to avoid that outcome. And Happy New Year! :) MastCell Talk 22:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 2over0

Much as I have lately been trying to encourage the major players here to pursue dispute resolution, I basically agree with Vassyana, below. There is currently no Climate change taskforce at Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment, which would be a good place to discuss the organizational issues that keep cropping up. I am not sure what more could be done here about the persistent socking and RL-inspired new editors; the disruption from long term tendentious advocates and SPAs should be amenable to normal topic-ban procedures where aggressive monitoring fails. The area also suffers from a dearth of active administrators; the regular editors here are basically a good bunch, but a little more oversight and prompt action could I think go a long way.

Also, while I think it was correct to include me in the above list, by my count I have protected Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident once and Scientific opinion on climate change once, and reopened SOoCC to normal editing after my lock following discussion on the talkpage. I have also issued a number of blocks in the area, mostly resulting from AN3 reports or per Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change#Locked.

If the case is accepted, however, perhaps the discretionary sanctions boilerplate could be applied as a preliminary injunction? I ask purely out of self interest and the expectation that their creation would be a probable remedy. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation - 2/0 (cont.) 01:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC) - 2/0 (cont.) 23:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment/Climate change task force does exist now (thank you Alan Liefting. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I've proposed that discretionary sanctions are imposed on the topic area by the community here - hopefully, if this is accepted, it will mean a case is not needed. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article probation now enacted at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 00:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party, TheGoodLocust

I've only really participated in the IPCC article and so I'll just speak to my experiences there. Basically, I think the best way for anyone to get a handle on this is to read the RfC that I filed on the subject and look carefully at the section that was repeatedly removed by some of the above parties:

IPCC Talk Page/RfC

I think review of this demonstrates that the section was well-written (I wrote it! :)), well-sourced, and relevant. A few of the editors who apparently haven't read WP:OWN kept deleting the material claiming WP:UNDUE, which seems ridiculous since an expert in the field said the incident had caused a "major confusion." TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@TenOfAllTrades: MarkNutley was not a minority POV-pusher. The talk pages shows that a majority of editors were for inclusion. However, I do agree with you about a 1RR rule for all climate change articles - this is a very good idea. TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell: I think a 1RR rule could be good, but I'm still concerned about WP:TAG. I think, and I mentioned this elsewhere a minute ago, that the best solution is just a topic ban on these articles after an editor has made over 100-500 edits on global warming related articles. These articles will survive, and I think thrive, with the addition of new blood - entrenchment (WP:OWN), the biggest problem in my opinion, would no longer be an issue on either side. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved party, HJ Mitchell

This is not an area of the wiki with which I am familiar, so please forgive any mistakes of protocol. I seem to be a little late here, however, I think it's (just) worth my commenting. As a semi regular contributor to ANI, I have seen the issues at these pages spill over on to the various noticeboards, particularly with 2over0's closure of an RfC on Talk:Global warming. From subsequent conversations with editors and through my own minor investigations into the topic, I am unsurprised to see this land at the door of ArbCom. If I may, I would suggest the implementation of a 1 Revert Rule (1 revert per editor per day on any page conceivably related to Global Warming) as well as topic bans (and further sanctions if need be) for those editors who continue to edit war or behave otherwise improperly on any article or talk page related to Global Warming. All that said, I am hopeful that a civil discussion in a more appropriate venue would produce better results than arbitration, though such attempts have previously been unsuccessful. Again, I apologise for any protocol mistakes and hope that a satisfactory conclusion can be reached for the good of Wikipedia. HJMitchell You rang? 03:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party Oren0

I have been editing frequently in this area for years. I could write pages and pages about this, but the long and short is that in my opinion a small number of experienced editors have used every tactic at their disposal to suppress global warming skepticism from every article possible. At times this has included: tag team reverting, inconsistent interpretations of policy, overly aggressive deletions/renames, and even inappropriate use of administrative tools (including protection and blocks while involved). All the while, they levy personal attacks and accusations against those with whom they disagree. This behavior has caused many articles to endure long protections and POV problems, not to mention the dozens of good editors who have been driven away. I will freely admit that there have been plenty of problems, including uncivil behavior, edit warring, and sockpuppetry on the side of skeptics as well, but quite frankly the type of behavior that is tolerated by experienced editors is appalling. If anyone is in any doubt that outside intervention is needed here, I'd implore you to check the WP:ANI archives or look at the article history of Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. Oren0 (talk) 06:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple arbs have asked for more specific examples of misconduct. A few that come to mind are:
    • After the article Climategate scandal is created, it is quickly nominated for deletion. User:Tony Sidaway moves this mainspace article to Climategate POV fork. Administrator User:Rd232 unilaterally closes a hotly contested AfD within 12 hours, completely out of process.
    • Users continually edit war on the page Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, going so far as to remove the word "Climategate" from the article, despite the fact that this is by far the prevailing term used in reliable sources. As a result of this and other edit wars, the page remains perpetually fully protected.
    • To combat alleged sockpuppetry, hundreds of new users who come to edit global warming-related pages are indef blocked. Some of these are blocked as sockpuppets before they edit a single page. While some of these blocks are no doubt legitimate, some are not and some have been done while involved. In fairness, of the two admins who were most egregious about this, one has been desysopped and one stopped a few months ago.
    • Talk page comments are frequently deleted, even when they are legitimate suggestions to improve articles. I can dig up diffs of this if need be.
    • Incivility is commonplace on talk pages and in edit summaries. I can dig up diffs of this if need be.
This is a start. Oren0 (talk) 03:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by named party Scjessey

I've only been editing in this topic for about a month (December), but it is clear that this topic is the victim of substantial sock puppet activity. Gigantic talk page threads have been initiated and/or stoked by socks and SPAs, and most edit warring has revolved around the removal of controversial material advanced by what appears to be off-wiki influence. Attempts to get editors to seek consensus before making controversial changes were met with quite strenuous opposition, a response I found mystifying. Bad faith accusations are thrown around like confetti, with particular favorites being claims of ownership against high-count editors, "leftist cabal", "AGW apologist cabal", etc. This happens because there doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground in the debate, so attempts to bring parties together to find common ground are quickly stifled as editors "dig in" to defend their respective positions. It's extremely frustrating.

But like most "hotbed" topics, what is needed is more administrator involvement - not arbitration or sanctions. If 5 or 6 admins were prepared to get involved to promote collaboration and quickly deal with socks and SPAs, all the fuss would die down considerably. I've long wished we had an "Administrator Rapid Response Team" ("ARRT") to jump in to hotbed topics for a week or two. ArbCom should reject this poorly-defined and potentially gargantuan case until less formal efforts have been tried. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reaction to statement by JohnWBarber

As Noroton, and now apparently under this latest username, this editor has consistently gone out of his way to get in my face. I will be seeking a formal interaction restriction to stop this constant harassment, although quite how that would work given Noroton's ever-growing list of usernames remains to be seen. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lar

Dunno if I'm involved or not... I reaffirmed a neutrality disputed tag, and I have views on the matter. I'm fine either way, included or not. Since I was named I'll add my voice here to the chorus suggesting that more admin involvement, and an adoption of some sort of control regime, whether it be 2/0's, Protonk's, Ryan's or what, would help a lot, and I strongly urge the community to continue working on this (current link Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Climate_change_discretionary_sanctions_proposal) and adopt something. Soon. If they don't, I strongly urge ArbCom to impose one by temporary motion pending the case resolution/rejection/whatever. ++Lar: t/c 15:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I applaud the community taking action as outlined at Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation. This should help a lot. But there may be merit in a case to examine the actions of all parties nonetheless. ++Lar: t/c 05:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved MickMacNee

OrenO said it perfectly. The tricks, socking, bad faith and the rest are to be expected from the fringe side, but preventing that only needs uninvolved admins to do their job rather than ignoring it because it looks messy or takes time, but as ever this trait of the site is not something the committee can affect.

However, what they can affect for the sake of maintaining the appearance of neutrality to the wider world, the committee would do well to look into the partisan and dubious actions and motives of the tiny minority of experienced editors who show up time and again on GW articles, picking and choosing which policies to follow. Given the masses of prior case law re FRINGE topics, it could even be quite a quick case.

MickMacNee (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by nsaa

I read a opinion in the Norwegian left leaning daily newspaper Dagsavisen at 25 November 2009, and start looking into our article which I by surprise didn't find under the name used in the mentioned source Climategate. Looking at the article I saw that even the name Climategate was removed as an alternative name for the article. I produced at least three WP:RS, so our policy of WP:V was uphold, see Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident/Archive_1#Name_of_article. I was not aware of the collusion and working of some of the editors in this area, so I nearly got a WP:3RR blocking (and got a warning of it by one of them at User_talk:Nsaa#3RR_warning, which fail to warn some of the other parties [69]). For the moment I'm engaged in a tonally unacceptable handling by the same people where they remove {{pressmulti}} template from the talk page under very dubious claims. See Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#Pressmulti_-_removal_of_a_piece_with_millions_of_readers.3F_-_Climategate:_the_corruption_of_Wikipedia and my raising of one of the claims for removing it at WP:BLPN in Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident. Antoher thing it will be good for other to see into is the misuse of the word stolen in the article (a lot of discussion about it has appeared, and some of the editors don't want to read WP:RS sources that states that it is alleged. No court has stated that the e-mails is stolen. (Read this one and you prob. understand what I'm indicating Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#Official_police_statement_completely_undercuts_presumptive_conclusion_of_.22theft.22) Although the article states over and over again - it's BAD and makes Wikipedia looks quit partisan on this area). Wikidemon (talk · contribs) rewrote the article and make it much broader. It was deleted just after 12h by Rd232 (talk · contribs) (against policy) and hopefully this article can make it to the Climategate name. See User:Wikidemon/Climategate_v2 Hopefully some people strong on Wikipedia policy, but not into this area can look into what I'm never seen on Wikipedia for my five year here. Nsaa (talk) 13:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved party, Alan Liefting

The behaviour and some of the editors mentioned in this case is also spilling over into Talk:Climate change in the United Kingdom. I created Climate change in the United Kingdom not long after (?) the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident occurred. It was rather untimely in retrospect considering the amount of heated editing of the article and its talk page. In my WP life of 40,000 edits I have not seen anything of this nature before. The talk page is regularly edited and the stubby skeleton of a page that I created is pared down, abandoned and may soon be merged, redirected or deleted. We, as WP editors are supposed to be building WP not pulling it down. Climate change in the United Kingdom is a valid article and, although it is stubby, it has the "right" to exist especially if it is tagged with {{expand}}. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to editors removing specific comments from talk pages: is this allowable? If it is I would like to see that changed! Surely it is best to archive inactive threads rather than removing specific comments from other editors? This may be a way of POV pushing which goes completely against the policy of WP. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved party, Ikip

After the 9/11 arbitration, it was crystal clear to me that arbcom does, in fact arbitrate content disputes. Arbcom just does it indirectly. There are a lot of veteran editors here which support climate change, if arbcom takes this case, all dissenting voices in the climate change debate will be silenced, as all 9/11 conspiracy theorists were silenced. Involved admins will put sanctions on these editors and arbcom, if necessary, will rubber stamp these sanctions.

I fear a 1RR will be selectively enforced. Even if it is fairly enforced on wikipedia, this will not stop offwiki communication to make sure a page has the "correct" edit. The climate change editors are much more organized and know all of the nuisances and loop holes of wikipedia rules more than the climate change deniers do.

Should there be a arbcom? Probably. Climate change deniers have gotten a raw deal for years, arbcom will just institutionalize this raw deal, and lower the drama by silencing the deniers.

Roger Davies asked for "further (and more comprehensive) examples of egregious conduct." I can only speak about one former admin, who lost his adminship. This admin blocked several (dozen?) editors who edited climate change articles. I collected the evidence in a previous arbcom. I hesitate to even mention this, because the editor lost his adminship for involved blocks already. If they haven't already figured out who I am talking about, I can email any arbcom the link to this evidence, if necessary.

Ikip 05:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Comment by uninvolved Collect

Procedural issues aside (though choosing the editors with the greatest number of edits seems reasonable when dealing with a case as broad as this), the committee has a very important decision to make.

In an area where "true believers" and "heretics" exist, how does Wikipedia ensure the ability of editors who wish to include material about heresies in articles? Ought it so ensure? Climate change denial is offered as an example of an "advocacy article."

Now, editors seek, as often as not, to use ArbCom as a means of disqualifying those with different opinions, rather than seeking to accept that all points of view with substantial backers should be covered appropriately in articles.

It is very understandable that some seek to prevent "scientific falsehoods" from being presented in articles, but the committee at some point will have to decide how to maintain the rule of NPOV in a manner consistent across all of Wikipedia, and whether "truth" should be used as a reason for disbarring "falsehood" from articles.

As a statement of principles, I might suggest that "Neutral point of view requires inclusion even of "wrong" ponts of view" and that "Use of Wikipedia processes to eliminate editors with opposing points of view is improper." Collect (talk) 15:27, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Cla68

Here, an admin who places a NPOV tag on a global warming page gets bullied. And here I see at least one editor using delaying tactics such as was often seen with involved editors in the Israel/Palestine disputes to try to keep changes from being made to "their" version of an article. I think this is case that needs to be heard. Cla68 (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved MikeHobday

As someone who tried to spend most of his onwiki time on articles, but does watch this page because, after all, drama is drama, I just wanted to say how impressed I am that, for once, the community addressed this problem so promptly on referral from these pages. Not everything is complicated or difficult. Full credit to Ryan and ChrisO for restoring my faith in what we can do. MikeHobday (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGaw

In response to Ryan Postlethwaite:Given the unresolved objections raised on Ryan's proposal page and very short timeframe for its implementation--I only just learned of his proposal minutes ago, despite fairly frequent reviews, of late, of the global warming pages--I dispute that this proposal is approved by the community. --DGaw (talk) 01:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Cla68: I concur. --DGaw (talk) 02:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by ChrisO

Ryan's proposal has now been enacted; please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. The regime now in force is essentially a carbon copy of the existing general sanctions on Barack Obama-related articles, which have been successful in reducing problems in that topic area.

I think the choice here comes down to two options: (1) undertake a huge, complex arbitration case that will likely last months and involve megabytes of evidence and a huge pile-on from parties and the peanut gallery; or (2) remand the matter to the community, now that the probation is in force. Arbitration is meant to be the last resort if all other means of resolving a problem have failed. We're in the process now of getting the problem resolved. If the probation is ineffective, then arbitration would certainly be indicated, but right now arbitration seems premature. Any continuing conduct issues on these articles are likely to be caught under the sanctions in the next few days and weeks. Let's give the community a chance to show that it can resolve its own problems. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Spartaz

Now that we have workable community imposed sanctions we should be free to clean up the mess that are climate articles. Accepting a case at this stage is only going to result in one of two outcomes.

  • Option 1: The case will trundle on for months and thereby delay the clean-up by enabling further disruptive editing by some of the editors on both sides who need to clean up their act or stop working in this area.
  • Option 2: The committee will end up imposing their own set of probation that will almost certainly mirror those already imposed and maybe take direct action to ban/topic ban a few particularly troublesome editors.

Since we now have community sanctions that should swiftly permit topic banning the worse offenders, I strongly urge the committee to reject this case now as opening a case will add no additional value to the process and delay the effect of the community sanctions already imposed. Spartaz Humbug! 16:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Martin Hogbin

I urge the arbitrators to give this case serious attention. I have only recently come to this page(since about 18 December 2009) but in that time I have seen rapid deletions of relevant material from the talk page [[70]], which I restored only to find the discussion rapidly archived [[71]].

When I challenged the action of one editor in describing contentious material as vandalism [[72]] my comment was rapidly deleted from the talk page [[73]]. When I then raised and RfC on this action that was rapidly squashed.

Later I saw a civil relevant scientific discussion, collapsed as soapboxing: [[74]].

A comment of mine on a proposed anti-vandal bot was retrospectively archived, the diff will explain [[75]]. On a second look it seems my comment was just deleted.

A paragraph that I moved was reverted within 15 minutes [[76]] with no discussion on the talk page, so far.

Now we have 'a community wide agreement' to put the article on probation , in just 4 days. I have never seen behaviour like this anywhere else. Something odd is going on here and it needs to be investigated. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/9/0/4)

  • Comment: There are far too many parties, from what I can see. Could Tedder please (a) sort them out by whether they're included for administrator actions or editorial actions and (b) perhaps remove as parties anyone who has made fewer than 30 edits total in the last 3 months on the articles/talk pages involved, if they are not being included with respect to administrator actions? Thanks. Awaiting additional statements/comments. Risker (talk) 04:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting further statements and in general agreement with Risker's suggestions. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Leaning towards accepting when I become active, but I'd like to see a pared down list of parties in this case to only the core members involved, and further party statements. Like to see where people think we should be looking at (whole area, specific editors conduct, etcetera) SirFozzie (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see that it's been proposed in the AN discussion that the area be placed under "Obama Articles" like terms for a period of one month, and to see if Arbitration is still necessary. If that goes through, I will switch to decline for now, and to look at it again fresh once that month has expired. SirFozzie (talk) 15:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now that the community sanctions/probation has been enacted, Decline. If it comes back, behavior seen during this probationary period will be useful to see. SirFozzie (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept; provisionally. This is a difficult area that is nearing explosion and where ArbCom could help — but the committee will likely edit the list of parties savagely and tweak the scope if the case is accepted. — Coren (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse, once active. As much as I hate to miss out on our trial by fire, I've reverted non-vandalistic edits to An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle. Steve Smith (talk) 18:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. There is no doubt that a variety of factors are making the topic area a bit more of a battleground mess than usual for politically charged topic areas. However, I do not see that this is beyond the capability of the community to resolve. On the contrary, I see several indications that the problems that arise can be resolved by the community. Despite the flurry of disputes, new accounts, accusations, and so on cropping up lately, community processes and individual administrators seem to be handling the matter in an appropriate fashion. Arbitration is not necessary and is likely to serve as a massive dramafest. Vassyana (talk) 20:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (leaning towards accept). I have no particular problems with the size or scope of the case but would welcome further (and more comprehensive) examples of egregious conduct.  Roger Davies talk 07:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (leaning towards accept). Per Roger. Would also like to see the outcome of Ryan's proposal. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (leaning towards acceptance) Size and scope ok, if cumbersome - specific examples of problematic behaviour would be welcome, particularly one the evidence stage is reached Fritzpoll (talk) 14:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Decline. I'd rather see the community's efforts to clear this one up followed through. Suggest this is referred back to us if these sanctions break down. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. The community seems well on the way to resolving the issue. Shell babelfish 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Spartaz says that we now have "community sanctions that should swiftly permit topic banning the worse offenders". The problem here is how to decide who are the offenders, let along the worse offenders - will the discussions truly be calm and based on evidence, or drama-filled and involve lots of involved editors commenting with rhetoric and hyperbole in an attempt to get their "opponents" topic banned? I see fault on both sides here (not surprisingly, given the heated nature of the discussions), and hence I am leaning to accepting a case, and even if this is declined, I think a review of the request for enforcement page here is needed. I've looked and already see battleground tendencies on both sides and little evidence that either side are trying to work together to improve the articles, but instead are attacking each other. Carcharoth (talk) 06:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, as the community is now well on its way in trying to resolve the issue; come back to us only if the community sanction fails to work. - Mailer Diablo 12:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. I am in favor of the community resolving this. I am also concerned about the scope, and apparent fluidity of parties in this request. If the community's attempt fails, then another (hopefully more targeted) request can be made. KnightLago (talk) 17:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as the community can and appears to be handling this, and because the frankly excessive number of parties leads me to believe this could easily be narrowed down to a more specific concern. Hersfold (t/a/c) 19:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as the community appears to be handling this at this time. Risker (talk) 02:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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