Jump to content

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Arbitration‎ | Requests

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by T. Canens (talk | contribs) at 05:16, 3 January 2014 (→‎Arbitrator views and discussion: cmt.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortcut
Arbitration Committee proceedings

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

[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
Clarification request: Fæ none none 1 January 2014
Amendment request: Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute none (orig. case) 31 December 2013

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for clarification and amendment

Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

  • Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
  • Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).

To file a clarification or amendment request: (you must use this format!)

  1. Choose one of the following options and open the page in a new tab or window:
  2. Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
  3. If your request will affect or involve other users (including any users you have named as parties), you must notify these editors of your submission; you can use {{subst:Arbitration CA notice|SECTIONTITLE}} to do this.
  4. Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
Clarification and Amendment archives
123456789101112131415161718
192021222324252627282930313233343536
373839404142434445464748495051525354
555657585960616263646566676869707172
737475767778798081828384858687888990
919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108
109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126
127128

This is not a discussion. Please do not submit your request until it is ready for consideration; this is not a space for drafts, and incremental additions to a submission are disruptive.

Arbitrators or Clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.

Requests from blocked or banned users should be made by e-mail directly to the Arbitration Committee.

Only Arbitrators and Clerks may remove requests from this page. Do not remove a request or any statements or comments unless you are in either of these groups. There must be no threaded discussion, so please comment only in your own section. Archived clarification and amendment requests are logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Clarification and Amendment requests. Numerous legacy and current shortcuts can be used to more quickly reach this page:

Shortcuts:
Clarification and Amendment archives
123456789101112131415161718
192021222324252627282930313233343536
373839404142434445464748495051525354
555657585960616263646566676869707172
737475767778798081828384858687888990
919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108
109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126
127128

Clarification request: Fæ

Initiated by Fæ (talk) at 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Link to "Unblocked by the Arbitration Committee" statement

Statement by Fæ

This request was first raised two months ago at AC/N link when I was advised to re-raise it here after the elections.

At the beginning of last year Arbcom accepted my appeal but at that point introduced the restrictions:[1]

  1. topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed
  2. topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed

I am requesting that the restrictions are lifted as not being of practical benefit to the project, in particular they are a key reason why I am avoiding offering my experience and volunteer time for training events or content creation projects that would improve the English Wikipedia. As an example of how difficult these broad restrictions are to comply with, in November 2013 I ran a one-off presentation and workshop with Kings College London as part of a UK "Women in Science" series of events[2]; these events are widely seen as a positive step by the Wikipedia community and a positive story by the global press with regard to addressing perceived systematic gender bias for Wikipedia content. During the event I created a stub[3] for Susan Lea, a professor of psychology at the college, as suggested by attendees, during the same event this was developed. It never occurred to me this may be an issue and it was only later that I realized that Lea's research covers sexual violence and rape.

Due to my past stressful experience of being harassed, I focused my volunteer time during 2013 on Wikimedia Commons, where I have uploaded over 160,000 photographs, and on request supported the Welsh Wikipedia where a continuing cooperative project has resulted in my uploading 2,700 requested book covers with 700 new articles about authors being created (some are authors on LGBT topics, though I have not created the articles). Apart from a handful of related image renames or behind the scenes OTRS work, I remained retired as a Wikipedian during 2013.

I have a long running interest in LGBT history and archives and I am at an informal exploratory discussion stage with a London college and planning to contact an independent library/archive I helped a few years ago, for a volunteer project I hope get off the ground in early 2014 (in advance of Wikimania 2014) that would help English Wikipedia content with media and previously unpublished source material, and could itself support the case for funding of an academic placement of a Wikipedian in Residence. I aim to get a proposal completed by February. By its nature a LGBT project would involve articles about events and living people (being from the 1950s to the current time) and LGBT material would be considered under the broad topic of sexuality.

Note, I have an approved project grant from WMUK[4] which supports Commons batch upload projects during 2014. Should there be a suitable opportunity to batch upload LGBT archive material, it is likely that it would be covered by the current grant.

I hope this request can be handled in a respectful way, especially considering the off-wiki attention that this topic tends to attract. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned—My focus has been on other projects, partly due to being concerned about how wide the topic ban of sexuality broadly construed is. You may wish to consider my Wikimedia work as demonstrated by some of my 2013 projects: Aeroplanes, LACMA (art history), MOD, Welsh books. These and my other projects have generated huge amounts of valuable educational content. In addition my long term role on the GLAMwiki Toolset steering group has resulted in Wikimedia tools which are about to generate many millions of high quality media assets for Wikipedia in partnership with many international leading institutions.
@Beeblebrox—As an example the difficulty of how broad "sexuality" is, I was at the Tate Britain exhibition on Art Under Attack this afternoon and was particularly interested in whether we could get versions of the New Scotland Yard letters from 1914 carrying warnings about suffragettes known to have made attacks on artworks, and so reasonably improve Wikipedia's articles about WSPU members. I believe any work such as this, potentially in partnership with the British Museum and Women's Library would be impossible for me to support under the current restrictions. In terms of past problems, I believe you are probably referring to edits I made back in 2010 or earlier. I have made well over 1,000,000 edits on various Wikimedia projects in the 3 years since then.[5][6] In terms of others wanting my support, I have a planned training and workshop day with the National Maritime Museum and other museum staff next month and should also get on with spending the WMUK project grant later this month, none of this volunteer work is made easy with a broadly construed topic ban making impossible any edit to the English Wikipedia touching topics such as women's rights, or notable figures in naval history who happen to be of LGBT interest (there are many). You may wish to consider how well followed my edits are, giving you some assurance that any problem I create would be likely to be rapidly flagged, in all probability both to me and many others.

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Per the unblock request, the topic bans may be appealed after 1 year - that is 12 March 2014. So, I'd not change anything for now. I am pleased that you haven't run into similar troubles since the arbitration case, but in March I would expect a little more evidence (here or on other Wikimedia projects) that you are unlikely to run into the difficulties that lead to the case. The fact that you've made less than 100 edits to Wikipedia since being unblocked gives me very little to go on, and I'm not active at the other projects to look at how you're doing. WormTT(talk) 10:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recused. AGK [•] 12:57, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I pretty much agree with Worm. Too early, and while this request explains why you would like the topic bans lifted, there really isn't any indication of why it would be in the best interest of the project and/or why we should not expect to see a repeat of past problems. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just like to re-emphasize that no matter what arguments you make this is still premature and in my opinion should not even be considered at this time. Frankly, filing such a request on New Year's Day smacks strongly of "asking the other parent." Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute

Initiated by NE Ent at 22:50, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected
Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. suspended topic ban
List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
Information about amendment request

Statement by NE Ent

The absolute binary nature of this remedy has put the AE community in the awkward position of either ignoring or imposing a severe remedy for what is arguably a minor, perhaps unintentional, infraction of the revert restriction remedy of the case. Please see applicable AE discussion. The committee should either just go ahead and impose the ban, or empower the admins at the AE to use their judgement as to whether the remedy is appropriate in a particular context. NE Ent 23:07, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Collect

A splendid example of the "law of unintended consequences." Fixable simply by changing will be to may be and adding after discussion at Arbitration Enforcement. Sorter wording and wording which well ought to be adopted by ArbCom in similar cases in future. Collect (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

I'm commenting here as an administrator who has also commented about the currently open enforcement request. I didn't follow the original case and have no opinion about whether the Committee's remedy that provides for an automatic topic ban of RosylnSKP in the event of a block is appropriate or not. That is for the Committee to determine, although I would find it surprising if the Committee were to change its mind so soon about a case it decided just a week ago.

Procedurally, I find this request by an editor who has no apparent reason to make it, because they are neither an administrator nor personally involved in the case, unhelpful. It adds an additional complication to processing the open enforcement request. This is not the first time that this forum has been used to preempt or influence an ongoing enforcement proceeding, which makes the enforcement process even more complicated and time-consuming. I recommend that the Committee considers under which if any circumstances it wants to accept amendment requests pertaining to decisions that are in the process of being enforced, and that it clarifies whether such requests mean that ongoing enforcement proceedings should be suspended (which, absent rules to that effect, I assume is not the case).  Sandstein  11:32, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RosylnSKP has now resumed editing and has apparently chosen not to make a statement about this request. Instead she has continued to edit in a manner that violates the restrictions that apply to her pursuant to the decision. I have therefore closed the enforcement request with a block, which activates the topic ban. This is of course without prejudice to any changes the Committee may wish to make as a result of this request.  Sandstein  11:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carcharoth

Commenting here not as an arbitrator (I recused on the case itself), but as someone who has a passing knowledge of the some of the history here: the underlying content matter looks to be extremely complex. As far as I can tell, the use of both the terms Ottoman and Turkish is valid in such articles, as long as those terms are used correctly. But to use them correctly requires a solid understanding of the politics and history of the region. One of the books I'm reading at the moment is A Peace to End All Peace - The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (Fromkin, 1989). That is by no means definitive, and there are obviously a multitude of sources that can be consulted, but the key point is that both terms can be used in the same article as long as you use them correctly (the fact that multiple academic sources use both terms depending on the context should make that clear). I think the idea that you have to use one term to the exclusion of the other on one article, or even use them interchangeably, is wrong, and that wasn't emphasised enough in the MILHIST discussions, and the arbitration case may have missed some of the more subtle points of this altogether. The key is to understand the sources and use the terms correctly. I understand that arbitration cases focus on conduct, but I'm making this statement in the hope that those editing such articles, and also those carrying out arbitration enforcement, don't draw the conclusion from the arbitration case that the underlying content matter is a simple one. Some editors do, or may, need to be excluded from the discussions, but more discussion of the content issues here will be needed at some point. Carcharoth (talk) 03:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • I opposed the remedy in question because it made the unsuspension of the topic ban the automatic consequence of any block; therefore, I'd certainly support this amendment. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:50, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I don't support the "automatic" nature here, I don't support it for the reason of tying hands. I would suggest that we rather enact standard discretionary sanctions for any disruption caused by RoslynSKP and leave the details to the AE admins based upon the specific incident. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I supported the remedy in a "right, you've got one chance and one chance only". If RoslynSKP gets to the point that she should be blocked, she should be topic banned. As such, I don't see that it should be changed. WormTT(talk) 09:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disinclined to grant this request, per WTT. AGK [•] 12:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Noting that Roslyn is now blocked and if this is not amended the topic ban is now in force. My impression here is that this is a user who was testing the edges and seeing what they could get away with. That being the case I think we can just let this stand as written and consider the topic ban in force. This attempt at a "parole" structure for a sanction does not appear to have worked as intended. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment&oldid=588927548"