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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Risker (talk | contribs) at 03:33, 4 April 2013 (→‎Gradual Gap Appearance: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter: d). 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
Gradual Gap Appearance   1 April 2013 {{{votes}}}
Malayalam cinema industry hub   26 March 2013 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Historical elections (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 20 Aug 2024 03 Sep 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b) Motion none 26 July 2024
Amendment request: German war effort Motion (orig. case) 13 August 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) none none 17 August 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Gradual Gap Appearance

Initiated by Dbate1 (talk) at 14:59, 1 April 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 Dbate1

The matter in dispute is whether the information included in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Gradual_gap_appearance consists of violations of WP:SYNTH.

I have made a number of modifications to appease and alleviate concerns that the section is a violation of WP:SYNTH, but users continued to eliminate the information even after these changes. None of the authors described how the modified material consisted of original synthesis (the only proffered challenges were to the prior sections), yet they simply decided to eliminate the material.

In terms of the sources, all of the information was extensively cited by articles published in notable journals. The information has not been challenged as factually incorrect. Moreover, all of the information cited was reliably supported by multiple sources, including references to each other. Thus, the primary sources challenge is insufficient. Additionally, when primary sources were included no interpretation of the sources is offered, which further conforms to the use of primary sources on Wikipedia. More importantly, the disputed section does not advocate any position. The only information that is included is direct text from the sources themselves, thus the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SYNTH#Synthesis_of_published_material_that_advances_a_position challenge is insufficient.

This appears to be a case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_SYNTH_is_not#SYNTH_is_not_an_advocacy_tool

Statement by Akuri

I encourage Arbcom to accept a case about the race and intelligence topic, but NOT for the reason given by Dbate1. What he has presented here is a content dispute where he can't get consensus for the changes he wants to make. But there also is a much longer-term dispute around these articles, which has been the subject of (by my count) eight arbitration requests in the past year. This is the ninth.

Some of the issues that I think require arbitration are:

  • Future Perfect at Sunrise's history of making poorly-considered admin actions in the topic area despite being a WP:INVOLVED admin. Cla68 requested arbitration about that issue in December, and I am the most recent person to experience it. Shortly after I had criticized FPAS for blocking user:BlackHades while involved, he threatened me with a block as well. (This was before I registered, when I was posting as an IP.) His stated reason for the block was to make me register, but when he made the block it was a hard block that disabled registration from my IP range. Contrary to Wikipedia:ADMIN#Accountability, FPAS refused to explain the reason for this inconsistency any of the places he was challenged about it. He did not respond to my query about it in my user talk, did not participate in the AN thread that The Devil's Advocate about it, and his only response when he was challenged in his user talk was a flippant comment that he intended to "ignore this stuff and wait for it to go away." Due to FPAS's refusal to participate in discussions about his block, it took me a month to finally get an account via ACC. This is part of a long pattern of misuse of his admin tools: note in Cla68's request that he previously had them taken away in the Macedonia 2 case.
  • There have been several requests about the one-way interaction bans that The Devil's Advocate, Cla68, SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 all have with Mathsci. On at least one occasion Arbcom almost made the interaction bans mutual, but changed their minds after Timothesus Canens announced that he was leaving AE, and was strongly considering lifting every AE sanction he had ever made. I think Mathsci has gamed some of these editors' one-way interaction bans with him, and will present evidence about that if Arbcom wants me to.

In last year's arbitration requests and AE threads, multiple arbitrators and uninvolved editors said the race and intelligence topic requires a full case, and that Arbcom should open one if someone requests it in 2013. For example, Silk Tork said that in this comment. It is 2013 now, so please open a case.

I can provide links to some of the many arbitration, AE and AN threads about these issues, if Arbcom needs them.

Statement by uninvolved Sjones23

Hello, everyone. I am not involved at all in this dispute, but I will try to explain what is going on at the moment.

Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), an involved administrator, has a history of misusing his administrative actions in the topic area. As described by Akuri, Cla68, a user, requested arbitration on the issue in December, but was rejected. After Akuri criticized FPAS for blocking BlackHades while he was involved, he threatened Akuri (then as an IP) with a block. As opposed to Wikipedia:ADMIN#Accountability, FPAS failed to respond to good faith community concerns and did not participate in the AN thread. In last years arbitration requests as well as the AE threads, several arbitrators and uninvolved editors said the race and intelligence topic would require a full case and that the Arbitration Committee (Arbcom) should open one if a person requests it in 2013.

There are also some concerns about WP:SYNTH in the gradual gap appearance section of the Race and intelligence article. Given that FPAS refuses to admit his administrative actions and there are WP:SYNTH violations in the race and intelligence article, I would encourage the Arbitration Committee to look over these problems.

Statement by Looie496

The topic area is highly fraught, as we all know, but this specific matter is not a viable arbitration case. The filing party, a new editor, is trying to force changes that violate Wikipedia policies into the article against the consensus of all other editors. The community can handle this. Looie496 (talk) 02:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mathsci

This request from the newly registered account Dbate1 shows a serious misunderstanding of the purpose of arbitration processes on wikipedia. The request should be declined and the appropriate dispute resolution processes explained to Dbate1. Although editing in good faith, he does not appear to understand how things work on wikipedia, either in gaining consensus or in resolving disputes.

Akuri's response is just as problematic. It shows a different misunderstanding of the purpose of arbitration processes. I had already commented in private a few days ago to Newyorkbrad about what appears to be a newly registered disruption-only account. Within his first few edits Akuri has agitated for an arbcom case and his response here, essentially attempting to hijack Dbate1's misconceived and confused request, was made in his 25th edit to wikipedia.

Dbate1's request here and general confusion might partly have resulted from this suggestion by Akuri.[1]

There seems to be no reason to request a checkuser. Akuri has edited logged out from the range 101.0.79.0/24 in Melbourne and Dbate1 from the IP 130.132.198.222 at Yale University. There seem to be no issues of sockpuppetry with either account.

Detailed comments on the newly registered account Akuri
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


The A while back Dougweller and KillerChihuahua intervened on the article which at this stage many will believe is named after the arbccoom case WP:ARBR&I. An SPI report suggesting that Dougweller was a sockpuppet of KillerChihuahua (or possibly vice-versa or possibly a meatpuppet) was started and resulted in a one-week block of BlackHades by Future Perfect at Sunrise. The SPi report was deleted as an attack page by Rschen7754.[2] The recently created account Akuri at that time was IP hopping in the range 101.0.71.0/24.[3] They made similar suggestions of meatpuppetry or behind-the-scences hanky-panky on Dougweller's talk page. When asked to register an account by multiple users, they refused, citing as their reason that they could not think of a suitable username. After their disruptive editing (in particular at WP:ANI) and refusal to register an account while editing in a contentious area, Future Perfect at Sunrise blocked the range. Appeals for an unblock through multiple open proxies (all blocked now) had no success at WP:AN but after about a month they succeeded in registering an account (communicating with King of Hearts using multiple open proxies, now blocked by Elockid and Materialscientist). Within their first ten edits, they were already agitating to start an arbcom case. That is contained in the spray of WP:ARBR&I alphabet soup they have added above. They do this against a backdrop of continued agitation by Captain Occam on wikipediocracy. Occam has confirmed there that evidence presented by Cla68 on arbcom pages was prepared by him. That is a new departure, but it has the benefit of being partially out in the open (eg his plans to bring MastCell to justice in an arbcom case) and certainly makes quite clear that Occam is still agitating about his campaign.

Similar disruption was caused by those sanctioned in the review as well as Zeromus1 (a sockpuppet of Ferahgo the Assassin), Mors Martell (a probable sockpuppet of Ferahgo the Assassin) and Boothello (a probable sockpuppet of a banned user known to have been in off-wiki contact with Ferahgo the Assassin). Akuri has written that while waiting to register an account he has been studying WP:ARBR&I—"reading the history of arbitration requests and AE threads about R&I". Arbcom cases are not biblical texts and to have them as a declared focus on wikipedia is a prime example of WP:NOTHERE, a journey into meta-meta-meta-meta land.

Akuri has been in discussion with The Devil's Advocate, who, to his credit, has repeatedly discouraged them from attempting to start arbcom proceedings when their account is barely autoconfirmed.

Here are their problematic edits. Prior to this submission, they had made only 24 edits, plus three logged off edits in the range 101.0.79.0/24. [4]

  • 10th edit, appeal to Courcelles concerning a new arbcom case[5]
  • 11th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 19th edits, similar questions to NE Ent[6][7][8][9][10]
  • 16th edit. Accuses Aprock of POV pushing.[11]
  • 17th edit, explains on his talk page about his desire to devote time to arbcom processes related to WP:ARBR&I.[12]
  • [13] "while waiting for my account request to be approved I spent some time reading the history of arbitration requests and AE threads about R&I, including the numerous indefinite blocks and one-way interaction bans. The situation that led to my block has existed for a year, at least. It would be unwise to ignore it, because I'm sure it will affect me again sooner or later, even if R&I is not the only topic I edit." That is a clear enough statement that their intention is to cause disruption through misuse of arbcom processes. This is similar to the disruption in the second half of 2012 through multiple submissions (five, six?) at RfAr and C&A.
  • 25th and 27th edits, their submission here.
  • 26th edit, indicates to The Devil's Advocate that he intends to hijack Dbate1's flawed request to start his own planned campaign.[14]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I suggest to the Committee that this is essentially a content dispute and therefore beyond ArbCom's remit. However, considering the amount of socking and off-Wiki coordination there has been in the history of R&I, I would also suggest that both Dbate1 and Akuri be CheckUsered, as this kind of activity in the very early stage of an account is inherently suspicious. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Note to Clerk: Could a Clerk please notify Future Perfect at Sunrise that his actions have been mentioned and that he has the right to submit a statement? Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
[15] NE Ent 10:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Ent. — ΛΧΣ21 17:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gradual Gap Appearance: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/1/0/0>

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

  • Decline. The issue raised by Dbate1 is a primarily a content disagreement that should be discussed on the talkpage. If a consensus is reached on the talkpage, it should be implemented; no one user has the right to dictate the content of an article. If no consensus is reached, forms of dispute resolution well short of arbitration, which is the final step in our dispute resolution processes, should be used. Dbate1 is also advised that references to "disciplinary action" and "banning" of other editors, as in this edit summary, are not appropriate. The issues raised by other commenters do not persuade me that an arbitration case is needed. I have no interest in revisiting the existing interaction bans, and there is no showing of recent misbehavior or ongoing problems that we could be helpful in resolving. I interpret my colleague's prior reference to our accepting a case in 2013 to mean that we should seriously consider accepting a case if actual problems continued, not as a commitment that we would do so simply upon request, and certainly not at the behest of a brand-new editor who seems to have come to Wikipedia for the very purpose of stirring up a case. A statement from Fut.Perf. explaining the actions that Sjones23 has questioned would be in order, but having read the relevant threads I believe I understand the reasoning behind those actions. I will leave it for someone else to assess the suggestion for a checkuser. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, largely per Newyorkbrad. Risker (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Malayalam cinema industry hub

Initiated by Prathambhu (talk) at 19:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

In addition several IPs (possibly sock puppets) also are involved.

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

Statement by Prathambhu

The matter of dispute in Malayalam cinema page is the hub of the Malayalam cinema industry. The version existed till February 18, 2013 said the present hub of Malayalam film industry is Kochi. This information was supported by citations based on published information in reliable sources in English such as The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express, New Indian Express, Passline Business Magazine, Deccan Chronicle and in Malayalam such as Malayala Manorama, Mathrubhumi and Deshabhimani which are the most widely read newspapers of India and Kerala. All of this published information stated that Kochi is the hub of Malayalam cinema industry presently. Some reports also said that Malayalam cinema industry have shifted to Kochi from its earlier bases in Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. The same information existed in South Indian film industry page too for many months.

From February 18, 2013 onwards IP numbered 69.47.228.36 started editing out the information existed then, along with citations. In place of it, IP number 69.47.228.36 inserted the claim that "Thiruvananthapuram is also a hub of Malayalam cinema industry". There were no citations from reliable sources s/he could provide for this claim. IP number 69.47.228.36 removed the citations that existed as s/he found that most of those news reports contradicted her/his claims. Despite talk page discussions this continued. There was a prolonged edit war in which user IP number 69.47.228.36 was supported by User:Aarem, User:Salih and numerous IPs, many of them numbered alike (suspected sock puppets).

The edit war spilt into South Indian film industry where information existed there for many months were removed by the above editors and also User:Samaleks. It further spread into Cinema of India too. Followed by a freeze of edit of Malayalam cinema by administrator User:Ged UK, there was an even longer talk page discussion. The dispute remained unresolved. Further under the suggestion of administrator User:Ged UK, I placed a Request for Comments in the Talk:Malayalam cinema. Apart from IP number 69.47.228.36, a few other IPs similar to the ones that took part in the edit war also made comments in the Request for Comments section.


In there, I tried to point out that any claim needs to be supported with information published in reliable sources as per core sourcing policy of Wikipedia Wikipedia:Verifiability and also Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.

The problems with the present version inserted by the above editors in Malayalam cinema page is that

1) not a single published information is found in support of this claim

2) it contradicts most of the available published information in reliable sources such as the ones mentioned above.

Presently IP number 69.47.228.36 insists that her/his claim be accepted without any evidence in the form of published information from reliable sources. In the Talk:Malayalam cinema page, IP numbered 69.47.228.36 even went on to overrule Wikipedia sourcing policy. As one can see in the latest response from IP number 69.47.228.36, s/he has referred to all media as liars, apart from calling me so.

In view of this, I am forced to abandon any hope for reasoning with this group who are here with a set agenda. This group have shown the audacity to overrule Wikipedia's policy and I found it safer to end the discussion in talk page and request arbitration. Let me request the Wikipedia administrators to kindly to look into this issue and hope for a resolution in accordance with Wikipedia's stated policies. Thank you, Sincerely Prathambhu (talk) 21:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Let me apologize for the delay in joining back. I was travelling for the past week with little internet access.

Kindly let me reiterate one thing. This is not a content dispute. It is a policy dispute.

The editors IP number 69.47.228.36, User:Aarem, [User:Salih]], [User:Samaleks]] et al. demand that their statements be inserted to wiki Malayalam cinema article against wikipedia core sourcing policy Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth

Not a single reliable source support their claim. As can be seen from the all of the talk discussion in Talk:Malayalam cinema.

Can one make statement(s) in wiki articles which are not based on information published in reliable sources ?

My humble submission is that if arbitration committee could decide on this one question, this issue could be settled immediately thereafter. Prathambhu (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Comments by two uninvolved editors JK and User:Wwwhatsup can be found at Talk:Malayalam cinema page. They both brought up published information from reputed news organizations as reliable sources.

Kindly note that the statement by User:Jack Sebastian is a repetition of the claim made by User:Aarem, IP number 69.47.228.36 et al. User:Jack Sebastian has given by no published information available from any reliable source supporting it. In fact many of the existing published information contradict that statement - please see reports The Hindu report "Mollywood comes home to Kochi", Passline Business Magazine report "Mollywood comes to Kochi", Malayala Manorama report "Kamal in Kochi". Kindly also note that User:Jack Sebastian made the comment after this Arbitration request. Prathambhu (talk) 19:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Aarem

Malayalam Cinema is not centered in Kochi. Most of the production facilities are in Trivandrum. The leading production facilities in Kochi includes Max Labs, Lal Media, Navodaya(not fully functional now) and sound recording studio annex of Chitranjali. There is no leading animation studios in Kochi and no studios with large campus for outdoor shooting facility. 60% of the films that are now released in Malayalam is being shot in Kochi and suburbs. But that alone does not make it to be called the centre of industry. If in that case, before 10 years, 60% of the films were shot in villages of Ottapalam and Pollachi. Can it be then declared as the centre of the industry?

Trivandrum is having the maximum number of studio facilities and production facilities. This includes:

  • Chitranjali studios - with and indoor studio of around 12,000 sq.ft. (second largest indoor in Asia) with sound proof floor

Outdoor campus of 70 acres. Pre built Out door of Police station, Hospital, Class room, Office rooms, Village houses, Temple, etc are available. Chitranjali studio has a single window system to obtain permission from the Government Departments and agencies for various locations for shooting. It has recording studios, preview theatre, four outdoor film units, reel printing facilities

  • Prasad Colour Labs - The leading colour labs in South India has its facilities in Trivandrum.

This is the only processing lab in Kerala. They are the pioneer in Digital processing and negative processing in South India. They are the leading colour lab in Graphics (VFX) and not only Malayalam films are processed in their facility in Trivandrum (eg; Enthiran post production works were done here).

  • Merryland studios - with a big outdoor campus facility of 36 acres. Now mostly used for mega serials
  • Accel Animation Studios – More known for its motion capture facilities and 3D graphics.
  • Vismayas Max – First DTS studio in Kerala. It has both animation facilities and regular film editing facilities. The sound recording unit of Vismaya is having a branch at Kochi too.
  • Toonz Animation – Subsidiary of Singapore based Toonz company. Major works include Indian releases like Tenali Raman, Hanuman, etc and international releases like XMen and Wolverine, Gatturro etc.

Also, if you look at the addresses of actors published in the official website of AMMA(Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes), majority are given the address at Trivandrum as their permanent address.addresses link Even AMMA is headquartered in Thycaud, Trivandrum. If Kochi is the centre of the industry, why Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes(AMMA) is not headquartered in Kochi ?

There are many companies in Kinfra film and Video park with full SEZ facilities for animation and gaming. There are hundreds of small studios in the city to support all the "serial" shooting and production for various TV channels. Trivandrum has much more production facilities than any other city in Kerala. Events like International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) and presence of organizations like Kerala Film Development Corporation, Chalachitra Academy, Soorya etc are in Trivandrum.

Citations are available for all these organizations. The links provided by User:Prathambhu are featured articles in the city page with peacock terms and biased reports to promote real estate and business in a region.

So in short, the movie industry in Kerala is not centred only in one location. Major facilities are in Trivandrum followed by Kochi. So to be impartial, no one can say that Malayalam movie industry is only centered in Kochi. Infact, it is scattered across Kerala with more presence in Trivandrum and Kochi.

The current statement is the article is as follows : " Malayalam film industry returned and established itself in Kerala with a major chunk of locations, studios, production and post-production facilities in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. " There is nothing wrong in this statement, as you can find majority of the studios and production facilities in both the cities. There is no official status like "centre of film industry". Cheers, -- Aarem (Talk) 10:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I support a sock puppet investigation as the User:ChroniclerSanjay(Special:Contributions/ChroniclerSanjay) is suspected to be the sock of User:Prathambhu.

@Newyorkbrad: Note: You may check here, what a neutral user has to say as a response to "Request for Comment" : by User:Jack Sebastian and response. -- Aarem (Talk)

Statement by Salih

No case for arbitration has been made out. What is happening at Malayalam cinema is that a bunch of users (probably socks) want to glorify their city - Kochi. For this purpose they are cherry picking the sources to conclude that Kochi is the 'hub' of Malayalam cinema. This not true as an equal number or more film studios and production facilities exist in Thiruvananthapuram as well. Besides, the shooting of Malayalam cinema, as User Aarem points out, is scattered across Kerala with more presence in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. This case may be closed without further action. Salih (talk) 08:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Malayalam cinema industry hub: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0/1>

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

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