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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Communicat (talk | contribs) at 11:44, 30 November 2010 (→‎Statement by Communicat: "negative interactions"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
WikipediaExperts   29 November 2010 {{{votes}}}
Military history POV-bias   28 November 2010 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 10 Oct 2024 24 Oct 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Historical elections 13 Sep 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) Motion (orig. case) 26 July 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) Motion (orig. case) 17 August 2024
Clarification request: Conduct in deletion-related editing none (orig. case) 8 September 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration


WikipediaExperts

Initiated by Sophie (Talk) at 20:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

WikipediaExperts.com

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • Can not be done because of the nature.
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • Can not be done because of the nature.

Statement by {Party 1}

I am guessing this me so, was recomended that this be posted here from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#WikipediaExperts

In user:Alpha_Quadrant's irc channel, he posted a website which allows users to pay $99 to get their atricle into wikipedia. WikipediaExperts.com has to have users here on Wikipedia and I am sure there will be sock accounts as well. Can we get a check for them? The ip from Whois says the IP for the site is 173.230.132.153.

Thanks - Sophie (Talk) 20:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this, if this were to happen and bussinesses start using Wikipedia for profit it would essentially undermine Wikipedia's founding purpose. --Alpha Quadrant talk 20:19, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Their FAQs

Q: Do I have full control over the content of the article? A: Yes. This is the case in the sense that we won’t post any article without your approval, and that you can later make any modifications to the article on your own. However, under Wikipedia rules, we are required to do our own research and submit a balanced article based on multiple sources. Wikipedia articles are NOT press-releases or advertorials written by the company or its ad agency. As specified in Wikipedia Pillars: “Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. We strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately and in context, and not presenting any point of view as "the truth" or "the best view." All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources, especially on controversial topics and when the subject is a living person. When conflict arises over neutrality, discuss details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution.”

Q: Are there subjects not admissible to Wikipedia? A: Yes, and they are best summed up in another of the five Wikipedia Pillars: “Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a web directory. It is not a dictionary, newspaper, or a collection of source documents.”

Q: Do you guarantee the articles you write will be accepted by Wikipedia? A: We guarantee that we will submit professional content, consistent with Wikipedia rules and standards; however, Wikipedia does not have a central acceptance authority that makes a final conclusion about the admissibility of articles. An article may be flagged, edited and removed at any time by any user or administrator. In such cases, we will make the necessary changes and resubmit it until it is accepted.

Q: How long does it take you to learn that someone’s modified an article? A: We receive alerts instantaneously.

Q: What’s included in your writing services? A: The writing service includes: 

   * Necessary research needed, including an analysis of your website and other materials you may provide including related media coverage
   * Article creation in compliance with Wikipedia rules, and adjusting the article should it be refused by Wikipedia
   * The $295 introduction package covers up to five hours of work. This is enough to complete most articles. If extra work is required, we apply our standard billing rate of $95/hour, with the detailed verifiable time reporting via our Transparent Billing application.


Q: What’s included in the monthly monitoring and maintenance service? A: The $99 monthly fee includes: 

   * Monitoring of your article by our proprietary software
   * Immediate intervention by our staff in case brand -damaging content is posted
   * Content updates whenever your company’s situation changes
   * The $99 fee covers up to two hours of work per month. This is enough for most articles. If extra work is required, we apply our standard billing rate of $95/hour, with the detailed verifiable time reporting via our Transparent Billing application.

See this page for any updates or what ever...

If you reply to me, please note I am 13 so please speak accordingly - Sophie (Talk) 20:31, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0)

  • Comment and decline: Sophie, arbitration is for a dispute that involves specific Wikipedia editors or specific disputes that involve only Wikipedia editors. WikipediaExperts is an external company that is not part of Wikipedia, and the Arbitration Committee has no control over their actions. Just as important, there is no Wikipedia policy that forbids editors who are paid to edit. In other words, you have no grounds on which to bring an arbitration case against WikipediaExperts. To other experienced editors and clerks: Perhaps someone could assist Sophie in exploring other methods of gauging community opinion on this question. I note that there was a recent thread on one of the administrative noticeboards relating to this issue. Risker (talk) 20:49, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline at this time. I agree with Risker that there is nothing for the Arbitration Committee to do in this matter, at least not at the present time. I also agree with Risker's other comments. I appreciate Sophie's interest in avoiding problematic types of editing and her calling this issue to our attention as someone else had suggested on ANI. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:08, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline; while it is unarguable that there is a fair segment of editors who find the very concept of paid editing distasteful, the fact is there is no policy that prohibits it per se nor has past attempts at reaching consensus on the matter met with any success. There may be something to arbitrate if an editor is found to edits inappropriately with a conflict of interest (with or without being paid for it), but at this time we cannot intervene against hypothetical editors, nor would we have a policy-based rationale for doing so. — Coren (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline - per Risker. KnightLago (talk) 01:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline per above. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Military history POV-bias

Initiated by Communicat (talk) at 19:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • Approximately 60,000 words discussion over a period of nearly a year at various military history project talk pages, including among others:

Talk:World War II/Archive 41#Communicat and fringe-POV pushing

Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Industrial capacity and production

Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Link to www.truth-hertz.net

Talk:World War II/Archive 39#WW2 origins of Cold War

Talk:World War II/Archive 39#Link to www.truth-hertz.net

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 45#User: Communicat

Talk:History of South Africa#new sub-section: extra-parliamentary activities

The record is incomplete because other discussion concerning milhist article [1] disappeared after it was deleted by Afd closer following intervention by above named party Nick-D

  • Mediation request that was dismissed because Nick-D refused to consent to mediation. (Deleted 7 October 2010 AGK (talk | contribs) deleted "Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/World War II (overview article)" ‎ (Case management (deletion of older, indexed rejected requests), for the Mediation Committee.)
  • Arbitration request that was declined on 7 November 2010 as premature, with proviso that request could be refiled within 10 days if Rfc/community involvement did not resolve dispute. [2]
  • Further inconclusive discussion at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aftermath_of_World_War_II generally and in particular http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aftermath_of_World_War_II#Progress_Publishers_.2F_Russian_sources among others

  • Various other

Statement by Communicat

My earlier request for arbitration was declined more than three weeks ago as premature, with the proviso that I could reapply within 10 days if Rfc/community-level involvement failed to resolve the dispute. Uninvolved administrator Georgewilliamherbert undertook to lodge the Rfc. A draft Rfc was opened for comment, resulting in further conflict between parties. To date the Rfc has not been formally opened.

The dispute essentially concerns NPOV and content issues. Editors at military history project consistently obstruct, disrupt, harrass and/or launch personal attacks on me whenever I attempt to introduce military history which they evidently construe as depicting the West in an unfavourable light. The World War II article, for example, relies on nearly 400 references from Western orthodox / conservative sources, to the total exclusion of non-Western and/or Western revisionist or significant-minority Western positions. I believe such bias through ommission violates WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and other Wikipedia policy rules.

Whenever I have attempted to resolve these matters, the essential NPOV/content issues are consistently evaded, deviated from and obscured by the parties concerned. This evasion, obscurantism and deviation from the central issues is invariably in the form of allegations of behavioural misconduct being directed at me, to the extent that the NPOV/content issue becomes buried and forgotten, and remains unaddressed.

I respectfully request the arbitration committee to focus specifically and exclusively on a review of what I contend is the systematic violation NPOV/content at the military history project, and not be sidetracked by diversionary allegations of my misconduct to the extent that sight is lost of the specific NPOV/content dispute at at hand. There has been no user conduct Rfc lodged against me, and my conduct is therefore not directly relevant to this request for arbitration. Questions of my alleged past misconduct have recently and comprehensively been replied to by myself at this thread.

I further request the arbitration committee not to allow separate and prejudical lobbying by involved parties on the respective user pages of individual committee members, as is known to have taken place during the course of my earlier request for arbitration. Communicat (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Communicat response to statements

Arbitrators may note that what IMO is the core issue in this application has been completely circumvented in statements of the involved editors. Namely: the question as to why, in a main military history article about World War II, there are nearly 400 individual references attributed to orthodox/conservative Western sources, but not even one source reflecting a non-Western or Western revisionist or significant-minority position. Such ommission, as already stated, violates the fundamental principles of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE among others.

I endorse fully the very pertinent statement of uninvolved editor Fifelfoo.

I reject entirely the contents of all the other statements, in particular the statement of Edward321, with the exception only of the latter's observation that I falsely claimed Tony Judt had endorsed my edits.[3]. It was an unintentional error on my part. I misread and thus attributed inaccurately the posting in question which describes my work as "valuable". That description, along with an accompanying quote from Tody Judt, was in fact provided by Novickas [4]. My apologies for the unintentional error.

Edward321 complains in his statement that I have failed to provide evidence of his past alleged actions that have served to bring wikipedia into disrepute. Here below is an extract from one popular website, posted by one Jonathan Goldman | August 6, 2009 10:08 PM:

On July 29, 2009, one user by the name of "Edward 321" tagged 13 legitimate articles about Spanish nobility as hoaxes for removal- based on nothing more than his own uninformed opinion and prejudice against royal subject matter. Users like Edward 321 have an agenda- they screem "hoax" in a vain attempted to have articles that they don't like removed- at the cost of loss of valid knowledge to the rest of us. Bogus hoax accusations are libelous, of which Wikipedia seems to do little to curb.

The users that police Wikipedia articles are really a little "clique" of shall we say "computer nerds" who feel that they are entitled to block any user they feel like to in order to flex their power, or more accurately, abuse their blocking rights to suit their personal agendas. They will often create false hoax files that they use to justify blocking and /or removal of topics on Wikipedia- with all critics silenced by being blocked or said to be a "sockpuppet" (the same person using a differnt account). These are just a few of Wikipedia's outrageous behaviors- that seem to go unchecked.

A keyword search at the same site will disclose further reference to Edward321. I am able, on the basis of my own experiences, to provide copious further evidence of gross misconduct on the part of Edward431 and the other involved parties. Such evidence would run into many thousands of words along with countless links and diffs, the end result of which would make an assessment of the merits of this application quite unmanageable.

I none the less thank the committee for agreeing to accept this application, which means in effect that it is no longer necessary for me to throw my toys out of the cot in the futile hopes of drawing attention to my displeasure. Communicat (talk) 16:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note

An extract from the concurrent thread at WP:RS/N discussing Progress Publishers, as referred to in the statement below by uninvolved editor Fifelfoo, merits duplication here because of its direct relevance to my request for arbitration. The thread concerns a recent and very typical disagreement between involved party Nick-D and myself, in relation to an allegedly "dubious" source provided by me in Aftermath of World War II article. I quote from the RS/N thread:

There is disagreement over the reliability of Ambient Conflicts: History of Relations between Countries with Different Social Systems, Yefim Chernyak, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987. Additional input would be appreciated. Edward321 (talk) 13:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Response by RS/N editor:

Looks reliable to me. I am going to guess that the argument against is... it's a Communist source and therefor "unreliable" (yes?) If so, that is a false argument. The fact that a published source supports a particular POV does not make it unreliable. The trick is to make the reader aware of the source's POV and to balance it with statements based on sources that support other POVs. Blueboar (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

What Blueboar is recommending above is precisely what I have for a long time been attempting to accomplish in the interests of NPOV, while the involved parties have consistently reverted, disrupted and prevented me from doing so. I would add it is not merely one or two Russian sources that have been obstructed by the involved parties. A range of other, reliable Western and non-communist sources have similarly been disputed, evidently because the positions those sources represent differ substantially from the dominant conservative/orthodox historical narrative upon which the milhist project relies exclusively and in contravention of NPOV. Communicat (talk) 23:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Hohum statement

Huhum suggests that I add the military history coordinator as a party to this matter. In fact, I was under the impression that Hohum himself was the coordinator, which is why I included Hohum as a party. It seems, however, that I was under a mistaken impression. So I'm now withdrawing Hohum as a party. I apologise to Hohum for any inconvenience. Communicat (talk) 00:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Habap statement

Habap, of all the parties involved in this matter, has in my experience proved by far to be the most troublesome. His statement IMO is riddled with falsehoods and provocations. I have come to believe that the best way to deal with his provocations is simply to ignore them — otherwise I might end up being blocked again. All the "points" Habap raises have already been rebutted comprehensively in other forums and discussion threads, the most recent of which is at this thread, which speaks for itself. I shall seek an interaction ban on Habap in the event of my being allowed to continue editing military history articles. Communicat (talk) 01:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Habap, in his highly prejudical statement and without providing evidence, claims falsely Communicat has had similar negative interactions, as the Committee may wish to either involve them or review the interactions: Arnoutf, Parsecboy, Binksternet, Paul Siebert, Moxy, and White Shadows. Since Habap has now involved directly the six editors referred to, I believe the onus is on Habap to inform those editors that he has involved them, so that they may speak for themselves, if at all. Habap is not their legitimate spokesperson. Communicat (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick-D

In my view this is an editor conduct matter, with Communicat continuing to push his or her POV in articles (backed by faked or miss-represented sources on occasion), not engage with dispute resolution and insult other editors (which recently led to a one week block with an extension for sock puppetry) while claiming that there's some kind of conspiracy which just about every editor involved in articles he or she has worked on is a member of. Communicat has been warned for this conduct and blocked for insulting other editors on several occasions. As such, I'd suggest that sanctions against Communicat would be the simplest solution and ArbCom involvement isn't really needed. I attempted to progress this via a post at WP:ANI, but it didn't go ahead as Georgewilliamherbert offered to start a RfC/U regarding Communicat, which unfortunately he did not complete or certify. I note that this is the third time Communicat has lodged a RfArb with these allegations without first engaging in dispute resolution, despite being advised to do so in the previous cases. ArbCom involvement would be helpful in finally resolving this matter, but I think that it would be overkill. Nick-D (talk) 01:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Edward321

The two previous rejected RfARs Communicat filed [5][6] evidence was provided against Communicat. Communicat repeatedly said that he would provide evidence if the RfAr was accepted. Wikipedia:No personal attacks says that “Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence” are personal attacks. Communicat has now been blocked 4 times for personal attacks.[7] The last block was extended when an IP which admitted to being Communicat [8] edited around the block to accuse the blocking Admin of “authoritarianism and rank buffoonery”.[9]

Looking at Communicat’s actions since the last RfAr was rejected we see:

So Communicat’s evidence is a couple drive-by comments made 4 years after some guy tossed an anti-Wikipedia rant on the web?[18] Note that User:Corvus cornix, User:Deor, User:Starblind, and User talk:Barneca are also accused at that site. If Arbcom accepts this as proof against me, it is also proof against them and they should be brought into this RfAr. I was one of several editors who spent months dealing with a persistent hoaxer. See User:Barneca/watch/Barbaro – when another batch of Barbaro hoaxer socks are blocked, some more complaints appear on the site Communicat linked. Edward321 (talk) 00:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved editor Fifelfoo

My attention was drawn here by an WP:RS/N thread discussing Progress Publishers.

  • Military history is one of the most successful encyclopaedic projects in the humanities area.
  • Military history's policies and style regarding sourcing and verification are transcluded upwards into the History project generally.
  • Humanities and social science articles generally have terrible problems with:
    • high order taxonomic classification and naming;
    • classification of academic sources by literary tradition and weight;
    • characterisation of academic traditions, their credibility, their literary influence;
    • determination and characterisation of weight of English language perspectives versus non-English language perspectives;
    • determination and characterisation of weight of US/UK English language versus other English language perspectives; and,
    • recourse to encyclopaedically unprofessional conduct in the location of, characterisation of, and weighting of appropriate secondary and tertiary (in the sense of field review articles) sources.
  • The impact of a major failure of editor conduct around the content production failures above—and the content failure itself—in the ambit of a core, successful humanities project seriously threatens the credibility of encyclopaedic project in Humanities and Social Sciences areas.
  • Discussion has recently occurred amongst some editors about Wikipedia's failure in taxonomy, classification, characterisation and weight content production in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Included in this discussion has been the failure of past conduct limitations (Eastern Europe, for example), to resolve the problem of production of encyclopaedic content.
  • As this issue exemplifies a threat, and itself threatens, the encyclopaedic project in the humanities and social sciences area it should be taken to arbitration. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Habap

Let me start by naming others with whom Communicat has had similar negative interactions, as the Committee may wish to either involve them or review the interactions: Arnoutf, Parsecboy, Binksternet, Paul Siebert, Moxy, and White Shadows. Those interactions have not been universally negative, though mostly so.

In my opinion, there are four areas of behaviour that Communicat has engaged in that are troubling: WP:NPA, WP:OWN, failures in understanding, and incomplete sourcing.

  • WP:NPA: as noted above, Communicat has been blocked multiple times for personal attacks. The attacks on me for which he was blocked involved him referring to me as incoherent [19] and boring [20], with the further statement that I was among "those who seem to do the least actual editing". None of that is particularly distressing (I am boring, though neither of the other comments is true). On the other hand, he has alleged pro-American/Anti-Soviet bias [21], which does bother me somewhat. I also found his argument of bias through ommission[22] troubling. I tried explaining to him when he made offensive statements or used a condescending tone that it was problematic [23] and [24]. Nonetheless, his behaviour has continued.
  • WP:OWN: Communicat also tends to exhibit ownership issues in articles he edits [25] [26], including in his most recent unblock request when he requested that he be unblocked so that he could delete two sentences in the Aftermath article.
  • Failures in understanding: There have been a number of issues in which it appears that Communicat failed to understand what was written by others. As Edward321 noted above, he mis-identified a compliment from Novickas as coming from Tony Judt, bragging how that endorsement by Professor Judt trumped any comments by anyone in the WPMilHist project. There are a vast array of similar mis-understanding, in which Communicat seems to fail to understand what another editor has written. Diffs can be provided, though most are only minor issues themselves, but which do establish a pattern.
  • Incomplete sourcing: Over the past few months, many books which Communicat has quoted from contradict his cherry-picked quotations in other parts of the book. Sometimes, his quotes do not accurately reflect the wording of the source. He has acknowledged in the past that he did not actually read some of those books (Wigfall Green and, apparent, Stephen Ambrose). Diffs can be provided on request.

So, I think Communicat's poor behaviour is doing far more harm than the alleged anti-Soviet bias. If he can learn to behave in a more collegial manner, remembering WP:TINC, then I think his work can provide some balance to these articles. If he cannot change his behaviour, I think he will return to ArbCom with a different set of editors in a month or a year. --Habap (talk) 16:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A little research on Edward321's "past alleged actions that have served to bring wikipedia into disrepute" reveals that the creator of those articles was User:G.-M. Cupertino, who is currently blocked for sock-puppetry and other behavioural problems. More information on the set of incidents can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/G.-M. Cupertino. Edward321's actions occurred a week before the Jonathan Goldman's comment was posted to Rich Tehrani's article, leading me to wonder if the comment is part of that dispute. I've not heard of TMCNet.com, but wonder if it is a popular website, since the article was written in 2005 and the flurry of comments started on 7 August 2009. --Habap (talk) 21:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hohum

I don't see any specific diffs showing POV bias or NPA attributed to me, so I'm not sure what kind of statement to make regarding these vague accusations. If something more solid is presented, I'll respond more solidly - either to involved parties or Arbitrators. Hopefully arbitration can identify and resolve the problem, since nothing else has.

As Communicat appears to impugn the entire military history project, perhaps its coordinators, or lead coordinator should be involved. (Hohum @) 18:37, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Communicat statement

So it seems I was listed, not because of specific actions, but because of a position I was incorrectly thought to hold. Incredible. I think I'll be commenting on the case, when active, whether I'm listed or not. For Communicats information, the coordinators and their responsibilities are listed at the bottom right of the main WP:MILHIST page. (Hohum @) 01:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Collect

The committee should likely examine whether "Progress Publishers" (which was apparently directly owned by the Soviet government, and whose parent company remains in Moscow), which may fall into a very murky area, fills WP:RS as that policy was intended for this topic. Collect (talk) 23:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Note to Clerk: The case is accepted and ready to open. The case name "World War II" should be used. Coren and I will be the drafters. The initial target evidence date should be 7 days from the date of opening. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (7/0/2/0)

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