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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Beyond My Ken (talk | contribs) at 21:08, 3 February 2013 (→‎Statement by Beyond My Ken). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
WP:IPH and image placeholders   2 February 2013 {{{votes}}}
Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )   1 February 2013 {{{votes}}}
Article Rescue Squadron   31 January 2013 {{{votes}}}
Sexology   30 January 2013 {{{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: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) Motion (orig. case) 17 August 2024
Amendment request: PIA Canvassing none (orig. case) 30 September 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

WP:IPH and image placeholders

Initiated by —Ahnoneemoos (talk) at 04:33, 2 February 2013 (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 User:Ahnoneemoos

User:Hammersoft keeps removing Wikipedia:Image placeholders claiming that such removal is appropiate "per WP:IPH". See [2] and [3] as examples. User was explained several times that WP:IPH is not a policy and that even though there was a poll regarding the use of said images at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders/Archive 2, Wikipedia as a whole did not reach a consensus to establish such policy—you need to read the whole discussion in its entirety and its relevant archives at:

User claims that the use of said placeholders has been "deprecated" but has been unable to show proof of such policy or decision except for his own statement posted at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive757#Undiscussed_mass_image_removals_by_Alan_Liefting.3B_block_considered.

User continues to remove said placeholder images under the claim of WP:IPH even though the use of such images is not a violation of any policies. I tried to add a {{failed}} tag to WP:IPH to state that it is not a policy but my revert was once again reverted.[5]

Requesting formal arbitration to order user to stop removing such content as its inclusion is not a violation of any policies.

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork: But there is no warring here at all, but a "campaign of removal" as you mentioned. We have also tried to discuss this both at a talk page and at ANI but admins did not establish a conclusion. Should not an official body be involved by now as both parties have failed to discuss the matter and one of the parties continues with the removal campaign despite previous discussions? I'm confused. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 14:23, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hammersoft

To the question of policy or not: Over the last four years since the poll was concluded, more than 50,000 articles that used placeholder images have had their uses removed. My contributions to this effort have been but a fraction of the overall effort. There are a rather large number of editors who have contributed to this effort. As of this writing, to my knowledge there are no people-type placeholder images in use anywhere in mainspace now. Is WP:IPH policy? I readily grant that it isn't. There are an enormous amount of things that are not policy that are practiced anyway. As I asked at the end of the WP:AN/I thread where this was discussed, where in policy does it say we SHOULD use placeholder images? The overwhelming common practice over these many years has been removal of placeholder images where they are found. If this were not the case, we would still have tens of thousands of uses of these images. Two of the biggest uses were with File:Replace_this_image_female.svg (11823 uses) and File:Replace_this_image_male.svg (38245 uses). I reference this posting for evidence of number of uses. That was in 2008. Now, neither of those images is used anywhere in mainspace on this project. Whether it is codified in policy or not, removal is common practice and is accepted.

To the issue of the dispute here highlighted: In January, I found WP:IPH had been modified by Ahnoneemoos [6] to tag it as "failed". I was rather surprised at this, as this page had not been edited in more than four years. In accordance with WP:BRD, I reverted the tagging and initiated a discussion with Ahnoneemoos on his talk page (see discussion). While this discussion was underway, Ahnoneemoos reverted my reversion [7], and further modified [8] Wikipedia:Image placeholders, which I had referenced for evidence in our discussion. I did not conduct any other reversion of Ahnoneemoos' edits, but rather attempted to resolve the issue through discussion. This became impossible on Ahnoneemoos' talk page when he banned me from his talk page (see end of post).

I subsequently initiated a thread at WP:AN/I here. In my posting there, I noted that I was not looking for any action against Ahnoneemoos, but rather wanting another set of eyes on the issue. In that thread, two other editors commented (SudoGhost and administrator Nyttend). Neither supported Ahnoneemoos' position, and concurred there was in fact consensus for the removal of the placeholder images. While this discussion was going on, administrator Future Perfect at Sunrise reverted both of Ahnoneemoos' taggings of failure [9][10]. Both places remain in that state now.

Discussion on the AN/I thread continued. Ahnoneemoos stop responding on the thread, and no one else commented, leading to the discussion being archived. I believed the issue closed at that point.

If there is a question of my conduct: When I discovered Ahnoneemoos' tagging of WP:IPH, I followed WP:BRD appropriately. I initiated discussion, providing links and evidence to support my position. I conducted only one revert, and that was in accordance with WP:BRD. I also immediately ceased removing placeholder images. I did not resume removing placeholder images until several days later, a day after the AN/I discussion had closed with no one supporting Ahnoneemoos' position. Not seeing any strong objections, and observing Ahnoneemoos appeared to have exited the discussion, I resumed removals. Now knowing of this RFAR, I am suspending removals until there is no longer a case at hand, and would of course suspend any future removals if it comes under discussion again. I always support and follow policy and guideline. If the issue of placeholder images should come up again, I would of course be happy to discuss the issue without revert warring, without continuing to remove such images, as I have demonstrated in this case.

In summary: While not codified in policy, image placeholders have been deprecated from mainspace project wide. One editor, Ahnoneemoos, objected to their removals. The editor has been universally opposed by all (granted, few) who have edited or discussed the issue of this case. There is no conduct issue on my part which I feel is in error. If there is, I would be happy to know of it and correct it.

Thank you for your time and attention. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Party 3}

Clerk notes

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

WP:IPH and image placeholders: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/9/0/0>

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

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

Initiated by Fram (talk) at 08:03, 1 February 2013 (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 Fram

This is a typical case about a long-lasting situation where the community has attempted different approaches to solve the problems, but where the community is actually in deadlock on how to proceed.

Richard Arthur Norton is a productive editor, very good at finding sources, which has earned him the respect and defense of a number of editors. On the other hand, he has a history of problematic edits with regard to copyright, which has lead to two CCI investigations and a topic ban, which then again lead to multiple blocks.

My main concern are the ongoing copyright problems, on two fronts: his file uploads, and his links to copyright violating off-wiki pages, created by himself. As can be seen from the "other steps" section, this has been going on for years (at least since 2006), and shows no signs of improvement. He uploads many files as PD, only to change them to FU when challenged. This includes recent examples like File:Freudenberg-Louis Kohlman-Ralph MatavanBeach 1915 circa.png, which he marked as PD (which it wasn't), and then changed to be FU for an article on the beach, which is hardly visible in the photograph; or File:Cristmas eve, Isle of Pines, 1910 copy.jpg, which changed from PD to FU despite being 3,246 × 2,111 pixels large. Images like File:Larger print of Aftermath from the Hurricane of 1917, Isle of Pines.jpg are still incorrectly tagged as public domain.

Worse are his many links to copyright violations he uploaded on other sites like Flickr and Familypedia. Recent examples include this edit to David Emanuel Wahlberg, linking to the picture of a Swedish article from 1949 (so presumably copyrighted); this edit to Eddie August Schneider, linking to more copyright violations[12]; or especially this edit to Paramus High School, linking to the familypedia page of Steven Howard Temares, which hosts nothing but a full copy of a Wall Street Journal article from 2012. This Familypedia page was created by Richard Arthur Norton. Using it as a reference is not only using a self-written wiki page as a reference, but a very clear breach of WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK.

Considering the long ongoing nature of these copyright violations, the fact that he has been made aware of these problems for years, and the sad fact that the community can't find a good solution, I would urge the Arbcom to take this case on. Fram (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Removed responses because of length considerations). Fram (talk) 08:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RAN reinstated clear copyright violating Familypedia link today:[13]. Fram (talk) 09:10, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carrite (Tim Davenport)

This has NOT been exhausted by the community and should be declined. Fram, in his rush to wield the blazing sword of justice to venue shop for a result which he finds "satisfactory," has opened this case request before the AN/I discussion thread has even been closed. I have a specific proposal to make there which was undercut by this unilateral decision. This case should be rejected at least until that thread is closed by consensus. Carrite (talk) 17:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 19:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Fram. My apologies if you are offended. I believe the correct term for what you are doing is WP:Venue Shopping and will make that change. Carrite (talk) 19:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Arbcom. You are, of course, free to proceed with the case here if you feel that is necessary. I don't want to come off as Richard Nixon saying "re-elect me and I'll tell you my secret plan to end the war in Vietnam." I have in mind a very limited punitive block, very explicit directions involving linking to external sites, and a supervised easing of an article creation prohibition. I can make that argument here or there, at your pleasure. I definitely think it would be more conducive to make this very specific proposal there, however. Carrite (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Fram. I think that you may well have extreme views on this matter that are outside of a potential consensus at AN/I. I'd like to try to achieve that there, whether you decide to adhere to WP:Assume Good Faith about the other parties in this potential case or not. Carrite (talk) 20:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken. There IS a consensus to be had at ANI, but somebody hatted things this morning because the process stopped there waiting to ArbCom to accept or defer taking this case at this time. It would be nice if someone would put another sort of hat on that that keeps the thread active without clogging up the works at ANI. This is potentially a huge, lengthy, nasty, stupid case here or a fairly quick and painless process there — probably with similar outcomes either venue. Carrite (talk) 18:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@ArbCom. The speed of this decision is creating problems. Please turn this down rapidly without bias against future reopening so ANI can work. There is a potential consensus there. Carrite (talk) 18:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carnildo

Community-based efforts to resolve this have been uniformly unsuccessful in getting RAN to care about copyright. I've only been involved with the image-upload side of things, and that mostly indirectly, through the efforts of my bots:

The first time one of my bots gave him a notice about an image copyright problem was March 9, 2006; the most recent was December 21, 2012. In between he has accumulated over a hundred bot warnings about image uploads, FairuseBot has given him ten warnings about fair-use policy compliance, and OrphanBot has given him a dozen notices about missing fair-use rationales (RAN's uploads were one of the reasons I added the since-discontinued rationale check). On March 14, 2006, I was asked to do a special run of OrphanBot to remove all of RAN's uploads from articles on the grounds that most of them were copyright violations; I'd estimate that over half of them were subsequently deleted.

The community can discuss this issue just fine, but resolving it is a different matter. --Carnildo (talk) 04:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

I apologize for making errors, and work to correct them as quickly as possible. Last year I was working on Wikipedia four hours a day and became one of the top 100 contributors, now I may contribute about 15 minutes a month. I would love it if every non-Wikipedia image online came with standard copyright notice built in. Copyrights are complex, if they were easy we would just have a script written to determine copyright status and what constitutes fair use and we could automatically import images, just like Google now does for their sidebar biographies. Google has been trying to settle the fair use vs copyright vs orphaned work for over 5 years with Google Books and still has not been able to find a universal agreement to the issue. People that should be experts on copyright make mistakes too: The New York Times still incorrectly puts a new copyright notice on all the PDF files of articles published before 1922 that are in the public domain. Other editors here at Wikipedia are not always correct when they delete something that I upload, after all we are not all-knowing, just people trying to create a good encyclopedia, and all doing the best we can. Here at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2013_January_31 we have my upload deleted of Amy Sherwin. The public domain status was rejected, then the fair use rational was rejected because there are images of her already on Commons. What image is on Commons as public domain? This very image that was rejected as not being public domain. Should I have checked Commons first? Yes. Should the person who argued that it was not in the public domain have recognized that the same image was listed as public domain and already stored on Commons? Yes. Do we both have the same goal: to make a world-class encyclopedia, that will preserve information and allow obscure, but notable people to remembered by history? Can every editor come to the same conclusion that an image is allowed by fair-use vs in-the-public-domain vs under-copyright? No, just look at any page of the daily list of images up for deletion. If it were easy, 100% of editors would agree, 100% of the time. At one point in Wikipedia we had an attempt to delete every fair use image of every living person, eventually that was overturned but not till after the deletions began. At another point we decided that every fair use image from a new agency was not allowed. One day it was fair use, the next day it wasn't.

Statement by Beyond My Ken

Just in case the committee was not aware: The current AN/I discussion reached an impasse and has been hatted on the basis of the matter having been brought here. The prevailing community sentiment had been a topic ban for RAN, but it appears that that editor is incapable of editing within the ban, and, perhaps, does not understand the limits of the ban, or disagrees with it to the extent that he will continue to test its boundaries. Because he is otherwise a valued content contributor, the community appears to be split between those who wish the topic ban to be enforced, and those willing to allow RAN such a degree of freedom that the topic ban becomes, in effect, unenforceable and moot. In such a situation, it requires a "court of last resort" to examine the situation and either re-affirm the community's decision, or alter or remove it. It is not beneficial to the community to have a community sanction which admins are unwilling to enforce, which is much less likely to be that case with an ArbCom-based decision. For these reasons, primarily because the admin corps appears to be unwilling to enforce the community's decision, I believe that the committee should take this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Hobit: Indeed, there were editors in the AN/I discussion that were opposed to a block on the basis that the situation was stale, but others - I'm thinking of Carrite, for instance - appeared to be opposed to the topic ban as it stands, and numerous other editors wished to expand it in one way or another. That fracturing was one of the factors that prevented any decision from being reached - that is to say, no admin was willing to take action based on that discussion, and it seems likely that such a division would be the outcome again if another discussion were held today. Considering that the community did agree at one point on a topic ban, the current state of affairs seems untenable, which requires ArbCom to step in, at least in my opinion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hobit

A few quick points:

  • I do think we may be stuck here. RAN had a lot of problems in the past and has occasionally (over a more than one year period) violated his topic ban. Some would prefer to be done with him, others would like to move forward with some type of oversight from a reasonable and uninvolved admin (I've suggested BOZ who is at least willing to consider it). If Arbcom doesn't get involved, it is likely we'll just have this topic ban (which effectively keep RAN away from doing anything he's interested in at Wikipedia) continue indefinitely.
  • Beyond My Ken, I think, misses the issue with the block discussion at ANI. The only real argument for not blocking RAN is was that the violation of the topic ban was weeks ago and so the block at this point would be hard to justify (some made good arguments each way on that, including me). I've very little doubt that if RAN were to create another article in the next couple of months he'd be blocked in a heartbeat (as he should be). This isn't a problem with the admin corps being unwilling to enforce the community's ban, it's with the block being so cold that it is highly questionable at this point.

I fully understand everyone's frustration with RAN. But I think he's not done anything in the last year that would cause a ban/block or whatever for anyone not under sanctions. That's a fairly good record. Of course, he is under sanctions (and at least initially for good reasons). The community isn't going to be able to resolve this (unless RAN does something clearly ban-able) I don't think. It would be nice if the committee could provide a way forward (binding mentorship would be my choice)

I do worry that RAN will continue to do things that will get him blocked then banned. But I'd like him to get that chance. Hobit (talk) 20:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/5>

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

  • Is there a reason why the community cannot discus this? I see the copyvios, and I see the history of problems with this user, but I don't see a recent discussion by the community which failed to reach a decision. SilkTork ✔Tea time 15:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm leaning towards rejecting the appeal, on the basis that there still appear to be good-faith efforts as a community-based resolution on ANI and an arb case would be too hasty. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:40, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting stateement from Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), but, like David above, not thinking this is ripe for arbitration at this moment. Courcelles 02:11, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also awaiting a statement from Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), but I am aware that this has been a longterm, serial issue that the community has attempted to address in several ways. Its repeated recurrence is very concerning. Leaning toward acceptance. Risker (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Risker that the repeated return of that issue at various noticeboards is concerning; I am leaning towards acceptance as well, but would prefer to see a statement from RAN before I make my mind. — Coren (talk) 14:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article Rescue Squadron

Initiated by The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. at 22:09, 31 January 2013 (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 The Devil's Advocate

Extended content

The Article Rescue Squadron has been a matter of contention in the community for some time due to allegations of canvassing. A dispute over the Article Rescue Squadron was brought before the Committee several years back and one of the ARS members involved was sanctioned. I became involved in the ARS dispute when an article I nominated for deletion was tagged for rescue by ARS member User:Northamerica1000 and I raised my concerns at ANI after failed attempts to resolve the matter with Northamerica. The rescue template was deleted as a result of that discussion. Northamerica created the current rescue list and an article I nominated for deletion was listed for rescue by Northamerica. This time the ANI discussions and deletion discussions initiated were all closed rapidly, preventing widespread discussion. I was subsequently banned in an AN discussion from raising further issues with the ARS, except to file an RfC (this was later modified to allow for measures such as arbitration). The RfC was closed with a consensus that the ARS was used for canvassing, though not frequently, that the project was biased in favor of inclusion, and that there was specifically a problem with a small group of members.

Several months later I nominated an article for deletion that was listed for rescue. I looked at the list and saw the Pizza cheese article (state at time of nomination) listed there by Northamerica and voted in the discussion to redirect to Pizza. The keep side of the debate saw almost exclusive participation by the ARS, while numerous uninvolved editors voted for a redirect or merge. User:Milowent became combative, accusing editors voting redirect of "general ignorance" and referring to me and User:Purplebackpack89 as "pizza cheese jihadists" during the discussion. It was closed as keep, but was then listed at DRV where it was overturned to no consensus. The DRV was listed by Northamerica. Purple and User:IRWolfie- both objected to this, with Wolfie suggesting a new RfC. The DRV listing also prompted considerable discussion on the ARS talk page. Northamerica complained about "freedom of information", Milowent talked about "censorship by Cheese Jihadists", and User:Colonel Warden defended the idea of listing DRVs to get ARS members involved in the discussion. Wolfie made some effort to draft the RfC, but he ultimately didn't have time to work on it and so it was deleted. Disputes between Purple and ARS editors were heated during this time with Dream accusing Purple of harassment at ANI because of comments made about the ARS.

Nearly two months later, Purple nominated the notification template for deletion, confusing it with the list page itself. He went to ANI to object to comments made by Dream and User:CallawayRox during the TfD. Wolfie nominated the list page for deletion a week later, citing many issues with the ARS such as Warden's listings and Dream's user page. During this discussion one of the participants was found to be a sock of User:Okip and that and several other accounts were blocked indefinitely with considerable discussion of the matter at AN, with some ARS members objecting to the indefinite block such as Dream Focus and Warden. There have been other confirmed and suspected instances of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry involving major contributors to the ARS. After four days of significant discussion the MfD on the list was closed as "no consensus" with the suggestion of initiating a wider community process. On Wolfie's page, Purple suggested having multiple RfC/Us on several of the ARS members. However, I believe further community discussions will be skewed by the heavy representation of ARS members as in the past and I think any situation where one can argue for two or more RfC/Us is a situation better suited for arbitration.

I think the most desirable outcome of a case would be a binding community discussion on reforming the ARS and having the project's activities subject to discretionary sanctions.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that my initial statement is already longer than 500 words I will try to limit my responses, but the point Beeblebrox raises about no active dispute is one of the main things I left unaddressed. As this is a long and intractable situation there are lulls, but I do not believe we should wait until the next flare-up to sort out the issue. It is because it has proven so intractable that the matter experiences such lulls.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What Beeblebrox and Greg are suggesting is essentially that we all engage in a game of whack-a-mole and just assume that we'll get all the moles and everything will be fine. In order to "break the back" of the dispute the entire project is going to have to be examined, otherwise we will just be back here some time later with a new batch of names and the same set of problems.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:40, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The committee does impose general measures on a topic area while evaluating the conduct of individual editors in that topic area. I can imagine no rational reason why things should be seen differently when it concerns a WikiProject.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 02:18, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few things that need to be cleared up here about the Article Rescue Squadron. First of all, the claims about a small minority of editors being the problem and not the project would have greater meaning if they were not also the dominant contributors to the ARS pages. On the main page only Northamerica and two editors who have been banned indefinitely for sockpuppetry have more than a hundred edits to the page, edits which tend to be about shaping the project as a whole. With the rescue list the top four editors are all ARS members listed as parties here and the ones people most often talk of nowadays as the problem editors. The project talk page includes in its top ten three of the named parties to the case, with one just outside the top ten, three banned sockmasters, and the editor who was the subject of an ArbCom case for his campaign against the ARS. Being a small minority does not and can not take away from the fact that problem editors have been the primary contributors to shaping the project and are of pivotal influence in all project discussions.

Another point raised about filing RfC/Us is not entirely meaningful. For one, concerns about Warden's conduct with regards to the deletion process have already been the subject of considerable discussion in an RfC/U. In addition, while Dream Focus has not been the subject of an RfC/U, one of the common criticisms involves Dream's user page. However, it has been through two deletion discussions and Dream was blocked last year following a new entry, but despite this the page remains largely a WP:BATTLEGROUND tirade. If that cannot be resolved by the community then I doubt any meaningful success can be achieved regarding Dream Focus through an RfC/U. I see no reason to believe that any RfC/Us will end up being effective. Having multiple RfC/Us would be a massive expenditure of community effort for what would likely prove fruitless.

I would say there is also a point to raise that, even when there is heavy participation by ARS members subsequent to a listing, this rarely results in meaningful improvement to articles at AfD. One salient example is the article on Mario Magnotta, which is an obvious BIO1E case, and where every editor in the deletion discussion but the nom was an ARS member voting keep. The article is very poorly written, probably by a non-native English speaker, and yet the only changes made are some minor template fixes and the addition of another source mentioning this individual solely in the context of an event. Another example from just a couple of weeks ago is List of songs about cities, which contains hundreds of songs with many that are not actually about cities at all. Warden voted keep, but only listed it some time later when the discussion was veering towards delete and within 20 minutes Dream jumped in and began arguing for keep, eventually with Warden and Dream casting aspersions on the nom and a delete voter who objected to the ARS listing. Warden's listing at ARS said literally just "Seems quite easy to source." While one ARS member did expand the lede, nothing was done to resolve issues with the list itself, even when numerous specific entries were mentioned in the discussion as not being about cities. Aside from Dream and Warden, three other ARS members (two who have not been mentioned here) joined the discussion to argue for keeping it, exactly matching the number of editors who voted delete.

My contention is that a listing at ARS rarely ever leads to meaningful improvements where ARS members get involved and that this is largely because it isn't necessary. When you can bombard the discussion with keep votes to get the content kept there is no meaningful incentive for improving the content. All this does then is fuel the "inclusionist-deletionist" conflict absurdity at AfD. The ARS is not interchangeable with "inclusionism" nor are its opponents interchangeable with "deletionism" and it is not the member list. In one respect, that is part of the problem. Most members only seem to take an interest in the ARS when it is facing criticism, while the small problem minority frequent it, directing its activities towards their own fringe view on deletion policy. When the process they are using is criticized the members who are rarely involved jump in to defend the project and this stokes the "inclusionist-deletionist" divide. For instance, as I was drafting the ARS RFC in my userspace last year one member who is rarely involved in the project's activities was quick to make intimidating comments.

In summary:

  • The problem editors dominate the actual activities of the ARS.
  • Many times their conduct provokes criticism of the project.
  • Less active members jump in to defend the project on a largely partisan basis and this aggravates wider disputes involving non-members.

There is no reason to believe there will not be continued flare-ups or that any problem editors that may be dealt with will not simply be replaced by another using the exact same project to create the exact same problems.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to be revamping my request to try and better illustrate the nature and weight of this request given some of the reactions here.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 07:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After some consideration, I will withdraw my request for now. While I believe this is already, one could even say well past, the point where arbitration should be considered I have not done a good job of making a case for it in my request and will have to go back to the drawing board to be clearer about the need for review by the Committee.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 19:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beeblebrox

I'm going to go ahead and call myself "involved" on this one. During the RFC last year I called for users to try and reform the ARS by joining it and trying to change the tone and focus of the group from just trying to "win" at AFD to actually improving articles. A lot of people seemed to agree but very few of them actually did so. It has not been easy to try and affect such a change there, there are still those who hold up the various blocked and banned users of the projects past as martyrs to the cause in their "grand struggle against hordes of deletionists." They never seem to notice that these users resorted to dirty tricks and lying again and again, taking and "ends justify the means" approach, seemingly unaware that the main end was that the ARS' reputation just sinks further and further into the muck every time they get caught. I feel like some progress has been made and that, as always, it is only a small minority of ARS members that still seem to retain the battlefield mentality that so marred this project in the past, but they are still a significant and very vocal minority.

That being said, I don't know what it is expected that ArbCom can do here. There is no way they can force ARS members to change their attitude, and as far as I know there is no current, urgent issue in need of the type of "back breaking" actions that ArbCom is for. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Devil's Advocate: I guess what I am saying is that while there are still individuals involved with this group that exhibit a battlefield mentality I believe they are at this point a small minority who take it upon themselves to speak for the other members who find the actual work of finding sources and using them to improve articles to be more important than slapping down lists of sources at AFD without being honest about their value. So, if there is a case here it is probably a case where the committee should look at the actions of those specific users and not look to sanction the group as a whole. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GregJackP

This needs to be declined, and no, there does not need to be another RfC on the issue. I'm a deletionist, and I use ARS, both to rescue articles and to support deletion on articles that do not deserve space in the project. While there are some individuals that automatically vote to keep at ARS, for the most part ARS members try to find WP:RS to save the article. An example, ARS posted GAVI Alliance for rescue and on examining the article, I nominated it for CSD G12. It was deleted, one of the members recreated a stub article with appropriate references. That's what they do, they are (for the most part) bad, evil inclusionist instead of good, upstanding deletionists (jk). The deletionists already have a place to gather and discuss what articles to delete, it's called AfD.

There should be a place for both groups on Wikipedia. Just listing an article for rescue is not canvasing. If there are problems with individual members, address it with them. We don't need to go after groups of people that think the same way, and if we do, I can think of many groups that are way more deserving of sanctions than ARS.

I'm semi-involved for two reasons: 1) I've listed articles for rescue (OK, even avowed deletionists can have a weak moment); and 2) I have a userbox that is anti-ARS (which is meant to be humorous). GregJackP Boomer! 00:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dream Focus

The last two debate for this ended in December. See [21] and [22]. Everything that could be said already was. Someone didn't get their way in an AFD, and won't stop beating a dead horse. If reliable sources are found, then the article is saved, if not it is deleted. That's how it works. Dream Focus 00:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide difference to prove any of these ridiculous claims against the ARS.

Also, note that Purplebackpack89/(pbp) is constantly making the same ridiculous statements, as well as outright lies against me. I was never almost indef blocked. He mentioned my three blocks previously, and I have explained to him specifically what the situation was, but he keeps bringing it up. Someone who doesn't know better, might read that and be influenced by it, so I will explain once again here. I reverted vandalism on an article and accidentally violated the 3 revert rule in March of 2009 and was blocked for 24 hours. Also in March 2009 I was blocked for 12 hours for a mistake made on a talk page I thought we had worked out, the block expiring before I got back on Wikipedia the next day, so I didn't have time to protest it. And on 22 January 2012 Jclemens blocked me for a week, without warning, in a move that even many administrators says was inappropriate, which would take far too long to get into here. I doubt any of those things are valid reasons to delete a Wikiproject though.

Bringing this up every chance he gets, among other things, should show his character.

Note that Purplebackpack89/(pbp) also accused me of canvassing when I informed posted a note to the Article Rescue Squadron that their page was up for deletion. He said in his edit summary that "Wikiprojects don't HAVE to be notified"[23]. Wants to delete the Wikiproject, and doesn't believe that Wikiproject should be notified of this. See also [24]

What we have here are a small number of editors who are determined to eliminate the ARS for disagreeing with them in an AFD, who are constantly starting things like this, and will likely continue to do so. These people are constantly attacking the ARS every chance they get, to the point of sheer lunacy. Please find some actual diffs to show, to prove an actual problem. People can also go and look at the ARS list, and the articles we have dealt with and how at Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Article_list. Note that not everyone participates in everything listed, and not everyone who shows up says "Keep". Dream Focus 05:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf (re ARS)

I don't consider myself involved, although I did close a TfD on Template:Rescue as delete and salt this time last year.

I don't think that the existence or otherwise of the ARS should be a matter for the ArbCom as this is a matter the community capable of handling itself (c.f. Wikipedia:Esperanza). If specific users are disrupting community discussions about it, or discussions about it have otherwise become intractable then ArbCom could step in to facilitate, but I don't see that has happened here. If specific users are using the ARS to canvas then those users should be dealt with, equally so should any user repeatedly not making constructive edits at AfDs (whether in the guise of ARS or otherwise), but only if the community is unable to handle them should it be an arbcom matter. Thryduulf (talk) 01:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I share Jclemens' frustrations, particularly misapplication of speedy-deletion criteria, a case to examine those issues would need to be carefully defined and I don't think this is the one. Thryduulf (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jclemens

Placeholder for a (potential) longer and more well referenced statement later, but I think the case should be accepted and the conduct of all parties looked at carefully. While there are certainly some inclusionists who have misbehaved, including a few who have been community banned for their actions, the entire climate around deletion process has become one of a tug-of-war. Deletion is supposed to serve the encyclopedia, yet often when editors start bringing up sources in response to a deletion discussion, the answer is often "that's not good enough". Other editors argue that DRV exists as a prior restraint that must render approval before any AfD-deleted article is recreated. Still others argue that CSD G4 is applicable far outside its well-defined scope, extending to anything where an AfD concern wasn't adequately addressed. Some editors repeatedly nominate fixable articles for AfD and go unsanctioned. Some admins resort to counting noses to close AfDs, where 7 deletes to 6 keeps becomes a deletion instead of a more accurate "no consensus" close. Overall, this tug-of-war and desire to make deletions harder to undo harms the encyclopedia. ArbCom has a chance to accept this case, and address both the excesses of some inclusionists as well as the policy misapplication by some deletionists. I grant that this would not be an easy problem to address, but it is a systematic problem that threatens the viability of the encyclopedia. Jclemens (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@SirFozzie, the criticism you level in your third sentence is simply not supported by facts. Please, show the committee how the "Article Rescue Squad" has done what you accuse it of doing in, say, the last six months. I would say, in fact, that your fourth sentence ("This needs to change") demonstrates that you're conflating the present conduct of various parties with the antics of now-banned (or de facto-banned, I lose track...) hyper inclusionists like A Nobody, Ikip, and Benjiboi. Jclemens (talk) 06:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Tarc. While I rescue articles, I have never been a member of the "Article Rescue Squadron". I have never liked the name, have never though it should be a Wikiproject with membership rolls, and have never supported the radical inclusionist agenda held by a small subset of its most vocal members, being more of a mergeist myself. At the same time, I will proudly stand up for the concept of article rescue: improving articles that would be kept if the right sources were present appropriately in every threatened article is a goal that every Wikipedian should embrace. Jclemens (talk) 06:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SirFozzie

After this reviewing this situation, these are my thoughts. A true Article RESCUE Squad would be a good thing for Wikipedia, to take articles that are notable, but not fully fleshed out or sourced, and make them worthy of being posted on Wikipedia. However, too often, it just turns out to be a group voting to keep anything and everything because their views on what articles should be on Wikipedia. This needs to change. This is what I would suggest: The Committee accept the case, but hold in abeyance for six months. Three of those months are for a binding community RfC on the role of projects like the ARS, to determine if they are disrupting Wikipedia in their zeal to keep possibly substandard articles (going so far as to monitor prominent article deletion taggers and then tagging the article for "rescuse". The following three months would see this area under discretionary sanctions to give administrators to prevent issues from flaring up. At the end of this six month period, we would see if the issue is on the way to being resolved, or needs further Committee attention. SirFozzie (talk) 02:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Purplebackpack89

I think it's pretty clear how I feel about this thread. Here's a summary:

  1. The ARS brings unnecessary drama to AfDs and elsewhere, often providing copious "keep" votes while not really doing that much in the area of article improvement. Though they claim to be accepting of all editors, in reality they are quite hostile to non-keepists and would prefer that ARS be walled off against them. They've also overextended their scope to the point of disruption; for example using the article rescue template on templates, and going to DRVs when their stated presence is AfDs. I have supported, and continue to support, disbanding or sanctioning the ARS. However, I acknowledge that there hasn't been a strong consensus for this.
  2. I never thought an ArbCom thread against the organization, rather than its members, was the right next step after Template:Rescue list (which is really just a recreation of the SALTed Template:Rescue) was kept. Some of the editors have been somewhat disruptive (Milowent and this Cheese Jihadist thing that got old ages ago); others much more so; in particular CallawayRox, and the three-blocked (and almost indeffed) Dream Focus. Action DOES need to be taken against the two of them; either with short-to-mid-term blocks and/or long-term sanctions forbidding them from anything to do with AfD.

Statement by Milowent

  • First of all, if the Committee takes the case, I beg it be named the "Pizza Cheese Jihadist Arbitration." Who wouldn't click on reports about that in WP:SIGNPOST? Because that's the only good thing that will come of it. The fact that DA makes that clearly silly statement of mine prominent is telling. Its a reference to "Inclusionist Taliban" being used against ARS, and no I won't waste your time with diffs, its silly stuff. Indeed, I also stated in that AfD, in a reference to the Punic Wars, "Placenta Neapolitana Caseus delenda est". Now, I've never been involved in any ArbCom proceedings or paid much attention to them, but I do believe they deal with sterner stuff.
  • What I've seen DA been told in light of the March-June 2012 RfC (which did have some good overall observations in its close), and following discussions, is that he should start an RFC/U on individual users if he wishes. Instead, there was an attempt to create a 2nd major RfC -- which promised to finally have the concrete evidence of pervasive ARS canvassing and disruption, but which evidence is never shown (aside from anecdotal cherry-picking or blanket claims, see, e.g., Purplebackpack89's statement above me, and Sir Fozzie's statement as well, with all due respect) That 2nd RfC effort was abandoned for lack of evidence, then it was morphed into an ill-advised MfD, as I summarised here. The ARS is completely transparent, anyone can review the archives of everything listed on the rescue list showing our rationale, discussions, actions, and result, to see what was done. The ARS by its nature focuses on articles where notability may be in dispute (a small percentage of all AfDs) and subject to disagreements (even though most ARS listings don't cause controversy, an article can either be improved or not ultimately).
  • I have no idea what we would have an arbitration about, since the 2nd RfC and RFC/Us never happened.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tarc

Well, certainly I'm among the top ARS critics around; my ego might even allow me to claim #1. My largest beef with them is their collective desire to create and retain articles dedicated to the banal, the trivial, and the one-hit wonders. When comes to stuff like Orville, the harm is only to the project's credibility. That we can shrug off and deal with internally. Where the ARS mentality is most destructive and likely to cause real-world harm though is when it comes to biographies of living people, especially the application of WP:BLP1E, which was created to limit our coverage of persons momentarily known for a single event. Whether it is an airline steward who has a meltdown, a judge caught on tape beating his kid with a belt, a woman who walks into a mall pool, or a girl who hiccups too much. And if a topic comes along that is important to other herd mentality WIkipedia groupings such as LGBT activism or liberal politics? Only by the grace of God/Buddha/FSM did we escape haivng an article on Marchus Bachmann, otherwise those are an exercise in futility to delete.

Having an opinion isn't wrong, nor is it sanctionable. Inflating sources and bloc voting to contravene BLP1E is. I will note something in particular that still sticks in my craw; JClemens, ex-Arb and ARS member and current commenter in this case proceeding, once proposed blocking editors who, quote, "cry BLP"

If you're going to open a case, it will be to investigate the actions of individual editors; the concept of saving worthy articles from deletion is a worthy one, but somewhere along the line most (not all) of the current crew has corrupted that mission.

Addendum: for the record, ARS was largely in the right regarding the "Pizza cheese" debacle. That was a severe overreach/reaction by TDA and crew.

Statement by Masem

I don't believe the Committee should take this case, but would strongly recommend that they set up a set of moderators (as was done for the Ireland naming process, which I was part of as one of those) to guide discussion towards determining what the ARS' purpose should be, what should be considered acceptable actions (eg, when is it gaining more input vs canvassing), and the like. While the community could have this discussion on the own, past attempts have always broken down since we're talking fundamental aspects of inclusionism vs deletionism, which always have led to heated debates. Having an ArbCom-appointed moderation panel to assure a calm discussion towards specific goals would be extremely help to avoid further drama of this nature. --MASEM (t) 05:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

OMG, not this crap again!? Why is it that so many people around here seem to have a problem with letting go? Please don't take this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Spartaz

The ARS is significantly improved on where it was in the past and I find little of their activity as a unit that requires investigation. While there were issues in past over the way that certain ARS members can play fast and loose with sources, this is surely an individual problems and not something the ARS should be punished for.

What I do have problems with is the tendency of hardcore ARS members to back each other up irrespective of how guilty they are and the way that the ARS ghetto encourages a "them and us" attitude to users who do not share their ideals and the concomitant name calling and labelling that they often seem to feel that no comment is complete without. This is particularly a problem at AFD as it incites a battlefield mentality and discourages policy based discussion. Since it would be silly to ask the arbitration Committee to ban the use of the terms deletionist and inclusionist in a pejorative way, I'd like to offer another solution, which is for closing admins to name and shame votes that attack other users or label them fir their views and make it clear in their close that that vote was discarded. I had significant success with that approach in a couple of MMA related DRVs, so it does work.

Beyond that, any outstanding issues with ARS are a reflection of wider problems in the way that community interacts with each other and I suggest the committee rejects this request. The community has the tolls in MFD to deal with any problems and it appears there is no consensus that there is a problem that the community wants to solve. Spartaz Humbug! 09:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Colonel Warden

The case presented by The Devil's Advocate seems to be based upon three AFDs:

  1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rumors and urban legends regarding Sesame Street
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zoological conspiracy theories (Arab-Israeli conflict)
  3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pizza cheese

I quite like whimsical topics but notice that I did not participate in any of these discussions. So, we immediately see the weak quality of the evidence which is supposed to show that I am part of a canvassing conspiracy or cabal.

Arbcom is a development of the traditional role of Jimmy Wales. Please note his comments yesterday on the general issue of canvassing:

  • 1 "I don't think it's a serious issue. I don't like the term 'canvassing', even on-wiki. I think it's more often used by people who want to shut down an open dialogue than people who have a righteous cause for concern. Another word for 'canvassing' is "engaging more people in the discussion" - it's open to all sides. The idea that it's bad to go out and recruit editors when you see a problem in Wikipedia is problematic."
  • 2 "I think people tend to overstate the likelihood or importance of it, and tend to underestimate how often the real problem is people screaming 'canvassing' to prevent people from seeking outside voices. Many things on Wikipedia would benefit from more participation, more eyeballs, and the bias against recruitment means that decisions are made in obscure corners without relevant people being properly notified."

The real issue at AFD in recent years is the overall decline in participation which has resulted in many discussions being rolled over week after week in the hope of attracting any comment. Please follow Jimbo's lead by supporting those few of us who remain to patrol this wasteland.

Warden (talk) 13:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by IRWolfie-

I have real life commitments and won't be able to take part. I know there was issues, but I haven't been active on wikipedia for the last month, and don't imagine I will for several months at the least. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:06, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Collect

As an early target of Ikip et al, I suppose I should welcome the closing of ARS, but I do not do so. It fills a perceived need for balance in the community, as a great many AfDs are not based on pure policy considerations but all too frequently on personal views (including some cases where a particular editor has been a target of proposed deletions for personal purposes). Closers of AfD discussions are supposed to give weight to policy-based arguments, and thus the ARS !votes which do not cite policy can be discounted somewhat if the closer is so inclined. What the ARS can do well s show where the argument for deletion is weak - and that is actually a "good thing" for the project. Would a "formal case" benefit Wikipedia? Noting the nfortunate tendency of cases to veer into mush, I think not. Jclemens is right in noting the tug-of-war - I just think ArbCom is not reasonably likely to solve the underlying issues. And I suggest anyone reviewing my MfD and AfD !votes will find me in the broad center of this type of discussion. Collect (talk) 15:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mark Arsten

I encourage Arbcom to decline this--I agree with what Carch. and Salvio have said. There are users whose involvement with Afds is often problematic, and we should focus on exploring sanctions for them. I don't think an Arb case about the ARS or Pizza Cheese is the best way to go about things. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:47, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by CallawayRox

Why all the fuss? I've been minding my own business and writing content. CallawayRox (talk) 20:07, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

As a vociferous opponent of the AfD Canvassing Squadron, I should be expected to support this - but I don't. There are several editors who simply need to go to RFC/U, and at least one isn't even mentioned here, whilst there are also editors that are disruptive at AfD (one is particularly problematic at the moment, and probably needs topic banning) who don't claim to be members of the ARS. Black Kite (talk) 20:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stetment by Rlendog

I am not an ARS member, but I have participated in some of the referenced discussions. I believe this case should be declined. Basically, the requester makes four points about ARS:

  1. Due to the efforts of ARS, the Pizza cheese article was brought up from its crappy state at the time of AfD to a decent, well sourced articles that was kept (with an ultimate "verdict" of "no consensus") despite the requester's wish to redirect it
  2. One ARS member made a snotty comment during the Pizza cheese debate
  3. Some ARS members have been found to be sockpuppets
  4. The requester does not believe that a community discussion will result in sanctions against ARS

Item 1 points to the benefits of ARS, rather than a reason for sanctions. Even if the subject does not warrant its own article, the result of ARS' efforts is that now there is at least significent sourced information that can be merged elsewhere. Which gets to the benefits of ARS. If they find sources or improve the article appropriately, the article may well get kept by their efforts, as it well should in that case. If they just go to the article and !vote "keep" just because WP:ILIKEIT or because they don't like Cheese Jihadists, the article will be deleted anyway (and if not, that is a separate issue that will likely be corrected at DRV).

Item 2 may be a genuine issue, but it is an issue with a particular editor, not with ARS. And if it is an isolated issue, it is hardly worthy of ArbCom.

Item 3 is certainly a significant issue, but sockpuppetry is a broader issue than ARS, and painting ARS members with the broad brush of sockpuppetry is not an appropriate way to deal with it. If there is credible evidence sockpuppetry, whether or not by ARS members, that should be investigated and sanctioned if confirmed on an individual basis.

And as for item 4, if the community is unlikely to reach a consensus to sanction ARS, that in itself and in the absence of a genuine problem with ARS is more reason not to accept the case. Rlendog (talk) 02:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cavarrone

As a non-ars member keep-voter in the Pizza cheese afd, this is a book case of good work of sourcing and general improvement of an article by ars members. And as keep-voter in the Mario Magnotta afd, I should point that the claim "every editor in the deletion discussion but the nom was an ARS member voting keep" is wrong, especially as I was the first voter in that discussion, well before it was listed for rescue, and the outcome was the only possible outcome (maybe it would have deserved a snow close), being the nomination very poor and based on wrong assumptions (cite "Notability: While there are references they are all in Italian yet the Italian WP doesn't have an article on this person. Doesn't seem significant outside Italy, and not even in Italy.") and being that person not a low-profile subject in the events (on the contrary he played the major role in them, he was also cited in a notable song, gave his name to a street and to some public events and, most important thing, received significant and persistent reliable coverage about him). In general, Devil's Advocate failed and is still failing in providing convincing evidences of canvassing or of bad faith votes, and it would not be so difficult as there are literally hundreds of articles that were listed for rescue... and the above inaccurances do not help the credibility of his cause. Cavarrone (talk) 08:52, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Flatscan

I was involved with the ARS, Ikip, and A Nobody a few years ago, but I don't remember any major interactions with the ARS or its members since Okip became less active after April 2010. I did participate in the Pizza cheese DRV. I have read or skimmed almost all of the evidence. It forms a coherent narrative but without highlighting Arbcom-level disruption. Intermittent, low-level disruption is very difficult to get reviewed, much less sanction. User conduct RfCs seem like a good way to reorganize this evidence, and they're the next check box in WP:Dispute resolution anyway.

Regarding canvassing complaints, I see nothing approaching what Ikip used to do. Ikip was only warned in the AMIB case, despite my evidence. The canvassing finding of fact did not pass. In January 2010, in response to WP:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people, Ikip quickly assembled a newsletter and notified 319 ARS members. It (example) contained a prominent side box, "The community is currently deciding whether 60,000 articles should be deleted." (60,000 in style="font-size:250%") and a "background" link to User:Ikip/d. Ikip was blocked for later spamming, but the proposed Ikip case was withdrawn.

As someone who has disagreed with Jclemens at recent G4 DRVs (WP:Deletion review/Log/2013 January 15, WP:Deletion review/Log/2013 January 21), I would like to emphasize that his statement is his own view of the dispute. I found a large, no consensus discussion from August–September 2011 (WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 43#Declined speedies, page history, resulted in no net change to the lead) in the WT:CSD archives, but I think that Arbitration is premature. As others have suggested for the ARS, targeted RfCs at the appropriate Wikipedia talk: pages are the way forward. Flatscan (talk) 05:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Article Rescue Squadron: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/6/2/3>

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

  • Recuse. I commented in, and closed, DRV discussions way too often (including one that's cited in TDA's statement), and we are far from understaffed right now. T. Canens (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting statements. To be most useful, at least to me, statements should focus on whether the activities of the Article Rescue Squadron are creating actual problems for the encyclopedia and the community, and if so what might be done about that. Everyone should bear in mind that in any arbitration decision, we are not going to endorse the goals or the values of either the "inclusionists" or the "deletionists." Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As there is community concern and debate about the Article Rescue Squadron it does seem appropriate to look into the matter. A binding RfC is one approach, though the community are able to do that themselves: if the community are able to reach consensus on a matter, then they have the power and authority to enforce their decisions - the community can ban individuals and close down projects, etc. ArbCom is not needed and shouldn't get involved where the community are able to handle matters (it weakens the community when ArbCom deals with matters that the community can and should handle). Where ArbCom is needed is where the community are unable to reach agreement. The RfC last year was inconclusive, with no actions coming out of it. As such, it may well be that ArbCom do need to take this case. SilkTork ✔Tea time 23:42, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - awaiting more statements, but leaning towards declining. I think this request has been framed wrong. Such a request should be framed around individual editors found to have engaged in, or be engaging in, problematic conduct. Not the existence or deleterious effect of a group as a whole. Attempting to examine the effect of groups in this manner would set a bad precedent. Carcharoth (talk) 01:39, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • At the time I wrote the above comment, I had completely forgotten that I had signed up to the membership list for the Article Rescue Squadron back in 2007. I noticed this while looking over Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/Members, and I'm listed on 4 October 2007, well over 5 years ago. Given that I don't think I was ever active within the project, and rarely comment at AfDs any more, it may not be that relevant, but I should have mentioned it when commenting initially. Apologies for that. Given this, I will probably not formally decline or comment further on this request, unless anyone has further questions related specifically to what I've just disclosed. Briefly, though, I agree with what Jclemens said about how membership rolls (especially outdated ones) are not very useful, and one thing I am going to do after this is move myself to an inactive list (or remove myself entirely) for projects where I'm no longer active, as such lists become meaningless if not kept updated, and arguably staying signed up while inactive gives undue weight to the vocal minority being mentioned here (who some might presume to speak for all on such lists). Carcharoth (talk) 07:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment; I think Carcharoth has a point that examining this is, a priori, not something the committee should be doing absent a very compelling reason – but I worry about a replay of the highly divisive mess around Esperanza replaying itself. I will look for statements that the community division in regards to this project is pervasive and likely to get worse rather than better with time, not just that there may be punctual problems. — Coren (talk) 02:01, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is clearly some concern over the conduct of some parties, but no evidence has been presented as to how widely that problem spreads through the rest of the Squadron's members or throughout Wikipedia's deletion processes. I am inclined to say that the problem framed in this request is confined to the listed parties, but I will await further statements on this point, and in particular community responses to Newyorkbrad's question above. As it stands, I will probably vote to decline this request. AGK [•] 14:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sexology

Initiated by — Mark Arsten (talk) at 03:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • Attempts to resolve issues including both Jokestress and Cantor
  • Attempts to resolve issues with Jokestress (unrelated to Cantor)

Statement by Mark Arsten

This dispute largely revolves around our articles on paraphilias, particularly those that relate to transgenderism. James Cantor (talk · contribs) and Jokestress (talk · contribs) have been actively editing this area for some time, and they have often come into conflict with each other. Each has faced charges of POV pushing in our sexology articles. They each contend that the other is promoting biased information about scientists and unscientific information about sexology. They have been in conflict on many articles' talk pages and in Afds. Examples include here, here, here, and here. Both editors are open about their identities (James Cantor and Andrea James), and they have each been involved in high-profile off-wiki controversies in the field of sexology.

This case request was sparked by a dispute in our article on hebephilia. It led to an ANI thread, visible here. My involvement with this began when I closed an Afd in which they debated each other. I was concerned with the intensity of the interactions between them, and when I saw an ANI thread, I got involved and opined in favor of an interaction ban. During the course of the discussion, I became very concerned about Jokestress' use of Wikipedia to attack researchers she disagrees with. Recent examples are here and here. Several commentators who participated in the thread felt that Cantor was giving undue weight to his own work and the work of his colleges in several of our articles. He claims that this criticism is political in nature. While some felt that Jokestress was countering Cantor's bias, others saw her edits as POV pushing.

These claims are difficult to verify without understanding of an obscure subject area. There was fairly strong support at ANI for an interaction ban between Cantor and Jokestress, and most people who participated agreed that either James Cantor or Jokestress (or both) should be topic banned from paraphilias or sexology, but there was no consensus reached about the proposed bans. Subsequently, a number of the participants agreed that this could only be solved through arbitration--and I agree with them. At this point, I think it is safe to say that it is nearly impossible to improve articles on paraphilias due to the intensity of the dispute, so I ask the Arbitration committee to accept this request. I've included Flyer22, WLU, Herostratus, and KimvdLinde as parties because they were all involved in the dispute on the talk page of Hebephilia and in the ANI thread.

Edit: Added Legitimus (talk · contribs) per request on my talk page.

I admit I screwed up the name when I filed this. It does have a much broader scope than Hebephilia.

Statement by Sceptre

I'm adding myself as an involved party due to my involvement in the ANI thread, but I think this is the meaty case that ArbCom was designed for. As I've said on several times over the past week, there are many facets of this dispute, including questions about importing a (now-ten-year-long) dispute onto the encyclopedia, the promotion of fringe theories on-and-off-wiki, professional conduct on-and-off-wiki, when expert editing becomes COI-editing (and vice-versa, when outsider editing may compromise neutrality), and even encyclopedic treatment of a maligned minority, especially when said maligning comes from otherwise reliable sources. Of course, the committee's remit is limited, but I still think it's in everyone's interest for it to be taken up here rather than at AN/I where battle lines seem to be pre-drawn. Sceptre (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I echo Thryduulf to a point regarding naming, but I think "paraphilias" is a little too restricted to the dispute. There are issues with gender identity disorders (i.e. alternative taxonomy and typology of transgenderism) as well as sexual identity disorders (i.e. paraphilias) in the dispute. Sceptre (talk) 05:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Hans Adler: I don't think it's wise or helpful to this dispute to obliquely compare the actions of Jokestress to the actions of pedophiles. The NYT article, and indeed the Dreger paper, only really tell Bailey's side of the story in the off-wiki dispute. While, were I in her place, I would not have taken some of the actions that she did, it is important to actually properly know the context of what she did before jumping to such a conclusion. Sceptre (talk) 14:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by KimvdLinde

Due to my work, I have easy access to many scientific articles, while my professional background provides me with an above average understanding of the literature and research methods. I am not sure when I came first in contact with James Cantor, but after the first encounter, I stated checking contributions of him to Wikipedia and quickly learned that it would be best if all of his edits would be checked by a competent expert in the field, because it became my impression that many of those edits are biased. Those edits are not in the category of obviously wrong, but in a more general category of the form of clever wording that will pass by the average reader and thus the average Wikipedia editor for that matter. I will provide one example here. Penile plethysmograph is a tool used to determine what stimuli arouses people, and is used as a measure that is independent of self-reports. The key in this kind of studies is effects that can be observed at the individual level versus effects that can be observed at the group level. In May 2008, James Cantor, editing as Marion The Librarian, inserted this claim: It has been shown to distinguish pedophilic men from nonpedophilic men. To a lay person, this reads as that you can take an individual, measure his response to pedophilic porno, and with certainty determine whether this person is a pedophile or not. This is not consistent with the results presented in the sources, which shows that you can assign a majority can be assigned to the proper category. This is a statement about a group, but also implies that not all of the individuals could be assigned to the proper group. In fact, the sensitivity to distinguish between pedophiles and non-pedophiles was between 29% and 62% depending on the specific subgroup. So, in September 2010, about 2.5 years after the misrepresentation was inserted, I changed the wording to reflect that [25]. A scholar like James knows this difference. The fact that he added it as if it was a guaranteed distinction, instead of a 'they observed a measurable difference between groups', is an obvious indication of biased editing. I assume it does not come as a surprise that two of the three articles that were cited to support the misrepresented claim came from his own institute.

Since that first discovery, I have kind of kept a eye on his editing, because I think in due time, it will be a hell of a story to tell about how a single editor could slip in so many edits that are massaging the truth. It becomes even more interesting to see how too many editors will accept too easy what he writes as true, and even help consolidating it. Depending on the outcome, this ArbCom case could easily be the next chapter in that saga, because dispute resolution at Wikipedia is unfortunately limited to behavioral issues, and the ArbCom unfortunately at times has to leave the content issues in place or becasue of its narrow scope even will allow those to continue to be added. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf (re sexology)

I've become involved with this only since it hit AN/I. After reading the initial evidence there and in linked discussions my view was that this wasn't ripe for Arbcom (yet) and that we (the community) should at least try to solve it first. I proposed a topic ban for Jokestress and mutual interaction bans between her and James Cantor [26]. This proposal gained widespread but not consensus support. I didn't and still don't think this would be a final solution, merely removing the most disruptive elements so that the finer problems could be dealt with.

By yesterday evening my view had evolved somewhat, and I posted my dinosaur and dogs analogy, [27]. Mark Asten is following the implicit recommendation of the most recent commenters in choosing the latter option I gave there.

I think the community could solve this still but it would be a long, multi-stage process of progressively sorting out each layer before moving on to the next. The feeling I've been increasingly getting from AN/I is that the community doesn't have the patience to do this, nor faith in it's ability to see it through without needing arbcom down the line, so I would recommend accepting the case.

I see four strands that need looking at:

  • COI issues regarding several editors, most notably Jokestress and James Cantor.
  • Behaviour around the content dispute - arbcom needs to examine what barriers are preventing the community solving it.
  • Interaction between editors, including Jokestress-James Cantor
  • Allegations made at AN/I regarding Jokestress' chilling effects on other editors' willingness to participate (WP:OUTING). Thryduulf (talk) 04:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

re SilkTork: If you just issue motions like the remedies proposed at AN/I then the actual problem probably won't get solved. My intention in proposing them was not to just to create breathing room to identify the deeper problems and remedies - anticipating that might require arbcom. Given we're here now I don't see benefit in the two stage process and another formal request later.

I see interaction between Jokestress and James Cantor, and Jokestress' contributions and behaviour to the topic area aa a net negative. Questions that need answering are:
  • Is James Cantor editing according to the COI guidelines?
  • Is his interaction with others problematic?
  • Does Jokestress' behaviour warrant a ban (permanent or temporary)? If not permanently banned, what restrictions should apply?
  • Are there other problematic users? There's more than just two people involved here.

The topic and interaction bans would work better as temporary injunctions. Thryduulf (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

re Kim: You may have a point re James Cantor (although I'm not sure he's quite as bad as you paint him), but I can't Jokestress as anything other than a problem. Thryduulf (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Skinwalker

This is an extension of a dispute that has been festering in the "real world" for many years. This dispute has at times included serious allegations of harassment by aggrieved parties. This article gives some background. Skinwalker (talk) 10:50, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrADHD

I have only had very recent exposure to this dispute and these individuals. I read in late December 2012 an article on Psychology Today site about the proposed novel diagnosis of hebephilia being rejected by the American Psychiatric Association - a group of psychologists, James Cantor I believe included were among those involved in trying to get it added to the DSM-5 diagnostic codes. Our hebephilia article did not have any mention of hebephilia failing to gain a foothold in the DSM-V so I added some content which James Cantor quickly removed.[28] Whether his revert was justified is debatable but I was struck by how he claimed BLP issues when there were none seemingly to get around COI editing restrictions. I tried to resolve the issue on the talk page with James Cantor with limited success.[29] James Cantor then edited in descriptive terms on his professional opponents which reduced the credibility of their views such as labeling them in article text as 'kink advocate' and 'defense psychologist'.[30] I then became aware of hostile interactions from user Jokestress, primarily focused on James Cantor - I learnt later that there has been a long running dispute where a colleague of James Cantor apparently used pictures of trans-sexual children as objects of sexual ridicule during a controversial sexology conference - Jokestress then took from a website pictures of the researcher's children in retaliation and put terrible sexual comments about them 'to prove a point'. Of course this is totally unacceptable off-wiki conduct and two severe wrongs don't make a right. From this drama it appears User:James Cantor created a deception account called User:MarionTheLibrarian where he would edit articles relating to Jokestress (real name Andrea James) as well as other COI topics. At some point Jokestress realised that MarionTheLibrarian was in fact James Cantor (a well known sexologist) 'undercover' and then from what I can tell a full scale conflict broke out here on wikipedia (a conflict that had been raging off-wiki for some time). James Cantor tends to conduct this dispute using stealth civil battle tactics whereas Jokestress tends to use overt battle tactics - attacking everyone who is perceived to be allied to James Cantor. James Cantor seems to civily use half-truths in his battle with Jokestress - for example correctly pointing out the wholy unacceptable misuse of pictures of his colleague's children by Jokestress,[31] but then failing to say to wikipedia editors that his colleague started this by initially misusing pictures of children as objects of sexual ridicule.[32] Due to lashing out at numerous people (e.g. the respected NPOV editor WLU), Jokestress seems to be causing the most problems at this moment in time but given the complex lengthy background I don't think it is possible for the community to resolve. Really the conduct of both of these people is shocking; also these two individuals are also high profile people, each having their own wikipedia pages which makes this all the more stunning.--MrADHD | T@1k? 12:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Legitimus

I would say all of these other users summed it up nicely and between all of them you probably get the picture. As for my take on things, I admit I do tend to side with James Cantor most of the time. I have no off-wiki association with him or any of his colleagues, nor do I necessarily agree with all his group's published works. But when the chips are down, he is both a qualified professional and one of very few scientists involved in this dispute to have done actual primary research. A great deal of the professional works being stacked against his group's work are little more than editorializing. Some of these individuals, such as Franklin, appear to have personal stakes in discrediting this research, given her history of defending criminals for money. As for me, I don't care one way or the other if hebephilia is a mental disorder, so long as it's acknowledged that there are people out there who specifically target this population for victimization.

As for Jokestress, yes she seems very bright and writes very nicely, but she is not a professional in any kind of mental health discipline and has far less defensible biases. We previously interacted on the pedophilia article, and her remarks in these sections [33] [34] [35] gave me a very uneasy feeling. Read them for yourself and make your own judgment; for what it's worth, I've heard most of them before. But sometimes it's not so much the biases as it's how she goes about expressing them. The shear ferocity and incivility I've witnessed makes me want to keep my interaction with her to a minimum, even if it means staying away from articles she set's her crosshairs on. During the discussion about hebephilia, she accused myself and others of hiding behind anonymous usernames and made several actions that appeared to be attempts to "out" us.

This included trying to send me e-mails, or at least claiming she did[36] which I don't doubt was some kind of ploy to bait me into replying, thus revealing my personal e-mail address to her. Her large volume of experience with wikipedia also means she knows how to use the system to her advantage, like any skilled lawyer knows how to use the courts. That kind of behavior right there freaks me out, and makes me not want to ever post anywhere she's part of the thread. I can confidently say Cantor has never insulted me nor has ever made me fearful that he would take action against me if I disagreed with him.Legitimus (talk) 20:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by James Cantor

I very much endorse Mark Arsten’s summary.

In 2003, Andrea James began a campaign of harassment against J. Michael Bailey, anyone she thought associated with him, and anyone who ever spoke positively about him, including multiple other activists and figures in the trans community.[37] Her off-wiki attacks became so notable as to be reported by the NYTimes [38]. Since 2003, she has created off-wiki attack sites against them,[39] joined WP, and although a widely productive editor in general, began manipulating sexology pages to reflect her POV. (Indeed, the NYTimes mentions the WP conflict, already that notable, a year before I ever made any WP edit). Although I had the greatest access to RSs by which to reveal the POV pushing, Jokestress' bullying of any editor not agreeing with her particular brand of politics has made it impossible for anyone (even other openly trans wikipedians who do not share Jokestress' view) to edit Sexology pages, including pages I have never edited at all.

Following extended conversation at AN/I, interested and uninvolved editors recommended (in addition to an interaction ban) a topic ban for Jokestress (16), Cantor (2), or both (2).[40] (I appreciate discussion is not voting, but at least one other editor found this list a helpful guideline.) As discussion continued, however, some felt that no meaningful ruling could be made/enforced by a single admin, and the present request was filed by one of the uninvolved editors.

PLEASE NOTE: I expect to be away Feb 21-Mar 3, as well as scattered periods in March/April. I am happy to list them, if appropriate.

— James Cantor (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that this is not the time/place to contest claims made by other parties, but MrADHD's accusation is incorrect, as fact-checking shows: I started on WP in May 2008, using a regular (anonymous) account for two months[41], then began editing under my own name in July 2008[42], immediately linked the accounts[43]), and never made any "stealth" edit in the >4 years since.[44][45] As I say, this is not the time/place for such a discussion, and I am happy to revert this if appropriate, but I did not think the reversal of the timeline should be left untagged either.
— James Cantor (talk) 18:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re Hans Adler's observation: Both the NYTimes article author and the peer reviewed article author asked for interviews, and both were turned down. The author of the peer reviewed article is explicit about this in her article, and the subject of the NYTimes article explicitly discusses turning down the reporter here. — James Cantor (talk) 15:38, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WLU

I think that both James Cantor and Jokestress are problematic on sex and gender-related pages. However, James Cantor is a recognized expert who has acknowledged his COI regarding sources and agreed not to edit (I have acted as an intermediary on some articles, reviewing sources and incorporating as appropriate, turning down when not). Jokestress is an experienced editor who also has a COI (being a male-to-female transsexual and having a history of activism that is both aggressive and unpalatable; Skinwalker linked a NYT article above, I would urge the arbitrators to read this far more detailed and lengthy article). However, she edits and tags articles quite freely with no apparent appreciation for how her POV and dislike of CAMH staff may bias her contributions. In addition, some of her actions on-wiki such as this one and this one show a troubling concern with real-life identities - troubling because of her real-life activism and the effects it had on J. Michael Bailey. Anyone aware of that history may find such efforts to determine, or allude to real-life identifies having a chilling effect - a concern I and Herostratus agree on. Jokestress also seems to not assume good faith of other editors, or at least not me; note the discussion here where an inarguably minor edit pointing to an inarguably reliable source resulted in a lengthy BLPN and accusations I made these minor and unproblematic changes out of spite. But perhaps I'm tilting at windmills.

An interaction ban and a modified topic ban would seem to address this (Jokestress being restricted from editing sex and gender articles, James Cantor restricted to editing only talk pages of the same articles) but that's a decision for the arbitrators. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hans Adler

Based on the New York Times article and the peer-reviewed paper on one of the involved editors, in connection with some of the diffs above, I think one aspect of this case is too big to be handled by Arbcom.

There exists an entire class of people, related to the topic of this case by mere accident, who are not allowed to edit due to the risks both to editors and to Wikipedia's reputation. This person should be treated similarly. By the operators of this site rather than a bunch of users who were elected by other users but can only relieve the Wikimedia Foundation of its legal duties up to a point. In this case, the right thing to do is to notify the Foundation in a way which they have to take seriously, and to make its legal department take responsibility. No volunteer should have to deal with such a person, and that includes the members of Arbcom. Hans Adler 12:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re to Sceptre: P-s are the only precedent I know that the Wikimedia Foundation as site operators, as opposed to the community, has banned anyone. I am clarifying because an editor contacted me, apparently under the false impression that I am attacking AJ as a proxy for all transgender people. (You have chosen to say that word. I intentionally did not do that. Transgender people have it hard enough even without such associations.)
The New York Times and the peer-reviewed paper in a Springer journal got not statements from the other side but appear balanced anyway. This creates a very strong presumption that AJ's side knows that its position is not defensible. Also, I am assuming that any quality sources refuting the main accusation – targeting an opponent's children, a clear indicator of dangerous mental instability or serious criminal energy – would have been brought up by now.
You know as well as I do that the New York Times or a peer-reviewed paper would be more than sufficient for a BLP claim. Here we have both, and we are not even talking about article space. (Of course the biography already mentions the issue, with the restraint appropriate for the genre.) I merely proposed an office action to ban an individual who other editors have every reason to perceive as a serious threat to their and their family's personal safety. Hans Adler 15:12, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re to Beyond My Ken: The operators of this website have certain legal obligations which they can't just forward to volunteers. If someone gets hurt, the WMF will be in trouble. Hans Adler 17:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by little green rosetta

As an activist, it is no surprise that Jokestress/James is outspoken against her philosophical opponents off-wiki. It should also be no surprise that sometimes activists take aggressive action, as such as James has been alleged to have committed. Several editors have mentioned the NYT article in connection with James. To be fair, James feels this action is sauce for the goose. As I am uninvolved with this outside of ANI, I am unfamiliar with other off-site action by James, but I've been lead to believe they do exist. Several editors have also expressed concerns that Jokestress has attempted to ferret out their real life identities. The natural conclusion is that they are concerned about real-life repercussions because James has demonstrated that she is perfectly capable of taking action. This clearly contributes to a "chilling effect" as described by Thryduulf. The question for the community (and now Arbcom) is do those actions prejudice her from editing in this topic area because of this possible effect which is not conducive to a collegial atmosphere?

Cantor clearly has a COI, of which he has openly acknowledged. He has made what appears to be a good faith effort to be transparent, as demonstrated by the pledge on his user page, and his many reasonably sounding explanations. Some editors appear to question his sincerity insofar to accuse of him of being a civil POV pusher. I've not the experience to sift through the evidence to ascertain whether Cantor's behavior is problematic with respect to this COI/POV, but I hope Arbcom investigates this in able to make a determination because the community has clearly been unable too.

Statement by EdJohnston

I'm uninvolved in this dispute. This is a reply to SilkTork's idea that the case might be disposed of by motion. Since by now there is a huge documentary record, this might work. My suggestion is that the arbitrators could agree to focus on four previous discussions as evidence:

Let's assume that the arbitrators could agree to such a limitation on evidence. Then in terms of remedies, they could see if it could be narrowed to four options:

  1. No action
  2. Sanction on Jokestress
  3. Sanction on James Cantor
  4. Both

If these options exhaust the realistic possibilities for near-term action, then the pain of a full case might be avoided. A motion might be considered instead. It is disappointing to have a long case which consumes a lot of resources and annoys most of the participants, but produces a result that could easily have been foreseen given what was known at the time of the original RFAR. EdJohnston (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Flyer22

Like others, I recognize the issues with James Cantor's editing. I also acknowledge that I am not the most neutral person to comment about Jokestress. The problems between the two of us, which also made her a problem for some others, started with the creation and deletion of the Adult sexual interest in children article. She wanted an article that covers all adult sexual interest in children, including non-pedophilic interest (such as child sexual abusers who are not pedophiles; yes, those exist, which the Pedophilia and Child sexual abuse articles already address); to this end, she also wanted the article to cover what she considers normal adult sexual interest in children (prepubescents and non-prepubescents). When she did not get her way with that article, she tried to turn the Pedophilia article into that article, disregarding WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Refer to this discussion where we talk about it again. In that discussion, which she repeats her POV of "normal adult sexual interest in prepubescent children," I also mentioned how, when we get pro-pedophilia editors and/or editors who advocate adult-child sexual relationships (with prepubescent children or with any minor under the age of consent), she sometimes supports them, such as User:Cataconia, and that "[a]ll [she does] with regard to [that] article is stalk out its talk page and take the time to violate WP:TALK to complain about the editors [she] disagrees with, especially if [she sees] a chance to criticize James Cantor, any time [she sees] fit, all while trying to make [her] complaints relevant to whatever topic [she is] responding to." Here are diff-links showing that behavior, including support of Cataconia:[46][47][48]. I mentioned that she should have been banned from that talk page a long time ago or should have banned herself from it because her posts there are unproductive and continuously combative. I noted that Wikipedia is not a battleground and that her taunting, combative rants and/or spiels do not belong there. The kinds of views Jokestress accuses us of constantly shutting down at the Pedophilia article and related articles are expressed by the WP:CHILD PROTECT policy.

I and others stress that Jokestress has a clear non-medicalization POV, in which, for example, she treats all paraphilias as a normal variation of human sexuality. She has made plenty of comments about rejecting medicalization of sexuality, often times acting inappropriately toward James Cantor while she's at it; see, for example, her comments in this discussion (which has subsections) at the List of paraphilias article. This toxic environment that results when Jokestress interacts with Cantor and/or others she dislike/hates, such as me, needs to stop. Flyer22 (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I significantly reduced the size of my above comment, per the 500-word limit (it's within limit, disregarding three of the diff-links and this note). Flyer22 (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by George William Herbert

This is a comment and not a statement per se.

I do not believe that this is beyond the realm of what the community could deal with, but aspects of it have been particularly difficult to actually do so. One, the participants have behaved disruptively enough over the totality of the long term view on-wiki to warrant some action, but sufficiently well that any individual incident generally did not rise to immediately actionable. Two, both are "experts" at some level (citeable; psychological professional and activist, respectively), and admins and editors tend to give legitimate experts some leeway. Three, some people are afraid of potential real-world consequences of intervention, though many admins are willing to act anyways. Four, the long term nature and subtle conflict make finding true neutral much harder, with long series of minor incidents muddying the waters for normal admins and noticeboards. Five, it's a particularly touchy area of sex study, which is already touchy on-wiki (and off).

I do not know if we actually need sanctions to come out of this, but we do need some fair determination of where neutral ground is and therefore where admins can safely stand, trying to enforce constructive peaceful interaction going forwards. A RFC could have potentially handled that, but an arbcom case is more likely to be able to frame it in an organized and neutral manner. I support Arbcom taking it up.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Herostratus

I think you should accept the case; if you do I'll make an argument for finding a way to encourage Jokestress (an extremely accomplished and valuable editor who has written or started hundreds of articles in many topic areas) to not edit in this one area which is so personally, professionally, and emotionally fraught for her.

Beyond that, I'd recommend that people pay special attention to whatever Legitimus has to say when considering these topics. He's learned, erudite, even-tempered, reasonably affable, and generally in the mainstream but also open-minded. He's a key asset here. Heed him. Herostratus (talk) 14:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I write merely to reject the untenable suggestion that because ArbCom is composed of volunteer editors it cannot handle this case, or does not have the authority to do so. The case is essentially about the on-wiki behavior of two editors, which is well within the committee's remit, and there is no reason to think that it needs to be "kicked upstairs" to the Foundation to handle. I urge the committee to take this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Sexology: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <6/0/1/3>

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

  • I don't think it's especially surprising that the community is having trouble solving the dispute on their own: having two parties in conflict come to Wikipedia to rehash a dispute over the substance behind articles connected to their conflict is something the project has very little defense against (I can remember a few other salient examples of an off-wiki dispute being replayed here that caused widespread disruption for years before they could be controlled).

    I'll wait until the two primary parties give their statement before voting on this case formally, but I'm probably going to accept this case now, before it degenerates into a wider melee. — Coren (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    • Accept; it's clear by now that there should be a case to examine whether how the off-wiki dispute has impacted our editing process and what can be done to fix that, but it should obviously be held until Jokestress's return. — Coren (talk) 04:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Waiting for more statements, before making my decision, but, at first glance, there appear to be issues which ArbCom should examine and, for that reason, I am inclined to say we should accept the case. Also, if we end up accepting it, I believe it should be held in abeyance, to allow all parties to fully participate. Salvio Let's talk about it! 13:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As above, waiting to hear more statements; and I'd like to look a bit more into what the community have done so far, and the difficulties the community have encountered in finding a solution. SilkTork ✔Tea time 14:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still thinking about this. People are indicating that interaction bans and topic bans appear to be the solution, but that the community feel that would be unenforceable without ArbCom. Is there enough evidence here for motions? If we can deal with this matter by motion, I would prefer that to a long drawn out case that ends up coming to the same conclusion, but in the meantime creates a lot of drama on and off-Wiki. The content side of matters we can't deal with, but the conduct we can. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:51, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is this case to be about anything more than the conduct of James Cantor and Jokestress? We can't deal with the off-Wiki stuff that people link to, and we can't deal with the content. All we can look at is if the conduct of editors is disrupting the project. We can spend two months arguing over the finer details, and getting some unwanted press attention into the bargain, to end up with a decision to somehow stop the disruption. If we have evidence now that two users are disruptive when they encounter each other, and they are disruptive when editing articles on a certain topic, then we can find the same workable solution today as in a very weary and unpleasant two months time. Is the question here about if these two users are being disruptive, or is the question about how to deal with that disruption? If it is clear they are disruptive, and nobody disputes that, then we don't need a case, we can just go to motions to agree on a solution. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:13, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's worth including Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-01 Lynn Conway as background material. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While it is flattering that people think the Committee can discover hidden truths, or that the members are smarter than the average bear, the reality is that we are just a bunch of fellow Wikipedia users who have been voted in from a very, very small selection of volunteers putting themselves forward. We have no special knowledge or skills above the average Wikipedian. All the Committee can do well is make binding decisions. Sometimes those decisions are good, sometimes they are bad, mostly they are just what could be agreed upon and looked OK at the time. I think it is clear that there is enough disruption occurring between James Cantor and Jokestress that an interaction ban is justified. The editing by both James Cantor and Jokestress of sexology articles draws attention and causes concern. James Cantor has offered for some time and continues to offer a mutual topic ban. This appears fairly straightforward: two users are being disruptive when editing certain articles and when dealing with each other. The community and even one of the two main parties feel that a mutual interaction and topic ban would be appropriate. We can decide that now by motion. So, we try an interaction and topic ban for both of them, apply discretionary sanctions to the topic area, and see if that reduces the disruption. If it doesn't then we can come back and look deeper at other solutions. If it does work, then we can look at appeals to lesson the sanctions, and see how that goes. SilkTork ✔Tea time 22:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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