Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed decision

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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

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Comments before proposed decision is posted

All discussions in this section have been archived as the proposed decision has now been posted. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

General comments

Statement by Ryulong

Why are "gender and sexuality" included in all of the topic ban proposals?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because we don't want this dispute, or clones of it, exported into parallel areas elsewhere on the Wiki, and because we want those t-banned to move on completely,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It just seems unnecessarily broad when the issue is more narrowly feminism vs. men's rights.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

WRT Protonk's section

Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

We've put very robust steps in place to deal with any new incoming SPAs. But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

But what about the obvious SPAs that are here now? The ones that you haven't bothered to cover? Loganmac is the most prominent of them and per the private evidence and what has happened while all this was behind closed doors shows that he cannot be neutral.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I interpret the "Single purpose accounts with agendas" remedy as allowing uninvolved administrators to topic ban SPAs who continue to edit with an agenda in that topic area, regardless of whether they were also doing so before this case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:24, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean the editors who are active now and have been active since this real world event started who have done nothing but try to sway the content of the article to cast them in a better light when the media does not and has not, particularly when this was covered by Nightline less than a week ago and in that time have resulted in multiple false police reports on people who simply don't agree with them, and apparently today led to a dog getting shot by the cops. Gamergate has been the only topic where I've engaged in this. I'm one of the most prolific contributors to this website, and there's a proposal to have me indefbanned because I was drawn into a real life dispute against my wishes when there are pages across the web attacking me for my participation. I can live with a topic ban. I don't edit the central page now and everything else I've done has been to question validity of sources and minor grammar fixes on peripheral articles. But this is playing into the hands of what the world at large is recognizing as a right wing hate group.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And I'm going to mirror something that NorthBySouthBaranof has said: there are so many people in these proposed decisions that have been subject to harassment and character assassinations off-site not only by the main stomping grounds of the topic matter but by parties of the case who are not being sanctioned at all. There is no reason I should contact the WMF regarding the harassment offsite when I sent to the arbitration committee several emails detailing parties to this case and other users who have participated in directed discussions to harass and demean me and others all because they think that they should be able to write the page about their movement and ignore the only reasons they have remotely got any press because of a constant application of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy and would rather present information in incredibly biased sources that are in no way valid reliable sources for Wikipedia, anyway, to push information. It is insane that the committee has decided to not sanction the most egregious performers of offsite harassment in regards to onsite actions but instead are proposing that every editor who has been subject to this harassment is to be banned in some capacity. The committee, and frankly Jimbo too, should not be caving into the demands of an out and out hate group because my presence and others is apparently damaging to the project when we should not be pandering to these people in the first place.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And they are prematurely dancing on our collective graves right now.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The issue still stands that every editor who has been attempting to make sure the page does not fall victim to single purpose accounts, BLP violations, and what have you, are all being sanctioned and banned from ever editing the topic, again. Also, I find it disingenuous that people on this page are bringing up the Auerbach incident (I had no existing beef with him until he came to Wikipedia) and are alleging that the donation I received means anything when every discussion about it has come up with "he was editing the same beforehand so why does it matter".—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Ries42 is one of the many accounts who appeared on Wikipedia following the opening of this case who most definitely would be affected by this remedy. Why are we allowing this to continue even at this stage?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Really DHeyward? You're saying that the fact that editors like myself and NBSB are being trolled and discussed extensively on off-site forums where the people who are trying to organize harassment and disruption of this process and website that means that we should have stepped back? You give Gamergate too much credit. They desire for people to quit so they can get their way. It's their only MO. Any level of giving in to a hate group is disingenuous.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:19, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to second MLauba's understanding of this situation. This is a real world dispute that spilled onto the project and a good chunk of us who are being considered for bans here simply did our best to prevent POV from being skeweed in a way that was not represented in reliable sources as well as to prevent BLP violations, and this has caused what has most definitely turned into a hate group to unnecessarily target us on and off-site. I presented to the arbitration committee evidence of of-site harassment and disruption performed by parties of this case but according to Roger Davies, who was the one who responded to all of my emails on this issue, did not consider to be relevant. And even on this page, TDA's constant accusations of every administrator who dared to step in and deal with the problems are involved simply because they came to the conclusion that the Gamergate POV pushers were the problem rather than the established editors doing their best to prevent POV skewing and BLP violations, that TDA is guilty of himself, which was presented in evidence. MLauba is right that the drafters' only interests were sanctioning the big names rather than acknowledging the real world mob who have doxxed anyone and everyone, who have called in false police reports, and who have set back the video game industry years because they don't like one video game and they think that another person wants to ban their favorite games.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Echoing TRPoD's latest comment, by topic banning everyone who was acting in the project's best interests rather than advocating for a nebulous hate mob it's only opening up the page to this hate mob (that Jimbo has encountered himself), which has been waiting for the "Five Horsemen" to be banned so they can have their way with the page.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I cannot for the life of me understand the brand new table put in place to explain the sanctions against me.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:25, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Everything in green is passing; everything in red/pink isn't.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean Callannecc's latest addition at the bottom. So in all entries oppose votes and support votes cancel each other out and even if it's 8/7 it passes?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Support and oppose don't cancel each other out as such as it's based on reaching a majority, which is 50% +1. The table there is used for taking preferential votes into account. I'll ask the clerks to add something to their procedures explaining it when I/they have more time,  Roger Davies ^talk 08:13, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I only ask because when tally was being kept prior to that table, the vote count was completely different for some of the remedies.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

WRT to the 1RR proposal: There are two banned editors who have made their MOs to harass me by edit warring with me and when it's blatantly obvious to me, others doubt me because of whatever history I have with them. And there is a large contingent of people online who despise the fact that I've made it so Wikipedia uses official English language trademarks for things from Japanese television over the "correct" versions that appeared in illegal fansubs. I echo Newyorkbrad's statement that this is going to be gamed against me in these two situations, the fact that the external factors that caused this dispute to precipitate will try to use it against me, as well as what he had informed me in an email with regards to his commentary.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:53, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

You know, I didn't expect to have an example to prove this but this is going on right now.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger Davies, Barberio and SinglePurposePartier do hit the nail on the head, again. It seems to me that you have completely disregarded the rammifications of the "external campaign" and its absolutely stated intentions to inflame the internal dispute. I can't believe that never came up in any evidence or its been expressly ignored and I am still appalled. The "zombie account" issue is ignored, unless you consider those "long-established editors". Half of the parties who have been banned by these proposals were trying to prevent abuse of the project to fill pages with BLP violations on those targetted by "external campaign" while becoming targets themselves. I know that none of us expected the committee to solve the "external campaign" but we at least expected you to consider it, particularly when a greater lens has been placed on this proposed decision and that such a large group of editors who had never involved themselves in the internal disputes are seeing the proposed remedies as myopic.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, people can state whether they like off-wiki. The Committee has neither the authority nor the desire to grant control of a highky controversial topic to a small group of self-selected editors, no matter how noble their motives or how long their association with the encyclopedia. Nor will the Committee be stampeded into granting, ultra vires, control to that group by often repeated allegations of conspiracies by shadowy bogeymen. A non-negotiable principle of Wikipedia is that editorial control of articles vests in the community and that editorial decisions are made by consensus. The Committee's role here is to uphold that fundamental principle and ensure that the normal editing processes prevail.  Roger Davies ^talk 09:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That is nothing like what is being requested. NorthBySouthBaranof, Tarc, TheRedPenOfDoom, TaraInDC, and myself were all explicitly targetted by Gamergate advocates offsite where they made multiple locations to collaborate means to force any of us either off of the article through some sort of topic ban or a complete ban from the site. There were posts across the Internet hoping that I did get completely banned and that they hoped I would kill myself afterwards. I gave you direct evidence that multiple parties to this case were actively participating in directed harassment towards me or making up shit about me to send more harassment my way and it was summarily ignored as far as I can tell.

Again, SinglePurposePartier in his response to you brings up an important point: the "Five Horseman" editors were doing everything they could to prevent Wikipedia's article space from being used to malign the main harassment targets of Gamergate in contra to WP:BLP and to make sure WP:NPOV was kept. Days upon days were spent explaining to sometimes the same editor over and over that "neutral point of view" doesn't mean "artificially bump it up to 50/50 with sources of ill repute that support the losing side". That the phrases "misogynistic" and "false allegations" was reliably sourced to news organizations beyond the multitude of enthusiast websites that are covered in WP:VG/RS and instead in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Time, the New Yorker, Le Monde, etc. That it would be reprehensible for Wikipedia to link to an article on Breitbart titled "Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry" or to a website that contains the names and addresses of an entire woman's family in 3 clicks.

Now, the community at large recognized how much of an utter quagmire this topic area is because I doubt that no one on the arbitration committee isn't reading the tech sections of the New York Times or BBC or doesn't play video games. No one wants to touch this topic area without having a lead lined suit on at all times. No one wants to have their name and face plastered across the Internet. My participation in Wikipedia is the main reason that I still go to extreme lengths to separate my personal identity with my identity as Ryulong because I learned the inner workings of the anti-Wikipedia machine early on, but that's all for moot now.

The issue is not that the five of us were "controlling" the topic area. Before the implimentation of the general sanctions, it was frankly impossible to get anything done on the article because editors with only 2 edits ever to their account from 2008 suddenly deciding to jump right into the debate and repeat the exact same talking points of everyone that came before them wasted the time of everyone else having to explain to this person why the page is set up a particular way, why the reliable sources are used as such, and why we can't use a website whose authorship is attributed to Gurney Halleck among other talking points that glancing at the article talk page now are still being rehashed by new editors into the mix.

I've already stepped away from editing the article and I've taken a few peripheral pages off of my watchlist. I can't even remotely fix a missing comma on any of these pages without five threads being started about me on offsite forums. I never once got blocked for edit warring within this topic area. Yes, I've got a lengthy rap sheet by Wikipedia standards. I've also been here nearly 10 years. I've only raised the hackles of a bunch of immature people who don't like that I've pointed out to them that the guidelines and policies don't support their proposed changes. I can point out at least one block that was caused by a banned editor's sockpuppet that went unnoticed until he began to harass me instead of his favorite target and there are only a handful of blocks that I was left to sit out in full in there.

But this is also besides the point. The topic bans read wrong. The world at large has seen that. The extenuating circumstances of the real world dispute where the erstwhile Gamergate movement, which is already heavily war-themed with its "operations" did turn the subject into a battleground. The number of good faith editors who came to Wikipedia are slim to none. Gamergate is characterized by its bad faith questions hidden within a veil of civility. I fell prey to that offsite and it's still coming back to bite me as of yesterday. That is what characterizes the article's talk page. New eyes are needed. But completely expunging people on what is frankly pretty much only one party's bad faith evidence against them sends the wrong message.

Also, "anti-Gamergate" being a second side to this debate does not exist, because as Gamergate has evolved into this harassment machine rather than a consumer revolt against coziness between journalists and game devs (which is still largely seen as predicated on a lie to begin with), opposition to Gamergate Is opposition of harassment of women and others and not opposition to finding ethics violations as it would imply if one would actually believe a word said by a group that has courted white supremacists and homophobes on top of the anti-feminist types. The only reason I can think of that predicates that phraseology must be from someone who linked you to a particular Reddit board in private evidence that exists to attempt to mitigate the harassment caused as of late rather than one that actively organizes it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:11, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

DHeyward, I'm really finding your statements here polemic, as is your original involvement in the article. You took a side in this and rather than it being a side beneficial to the project, it was a side on which people who wish to use Wikipedia to attack living persons were on. And while most of those people were banned along the way, several are still here. Several participate in off-site harassment. Several are long-standing Wikipedia editors. There is no such thing as an "anti-Gamergater". It is a phrase made up by Gamergate advocates to demonize the people they have collectively harassed and the people that have tried to protect these harassment victims to falsely accuse them as being for corruption in video game journalism; this term has changed to "anti-gamer" lately to continue to falsely apply an agenda to the people who have been victimized. The past few weeks have proven Gamergate is nothing more than a hate movement. The only thing I agree with you on is that the "Five Horsemen" or "five defenders" or whatever should not be the face of Wikipedia on any article, but no one wants to have anything to do with this topic area, not before the arbitration case, and certainly not after. Because the decision sends the message that Gamergate's tactics of bad faith questions and only the facade of civility work on Wikipedia, and when you go after people who have been on the website for as long as all of us have they will be harshly punished while you will get off relatively scott free. This is obvious over all the shit that happened to Cultural Marxism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). But there is zero credence given to the off-site dispute that spilled onto Wikipedia.

I certainly have no intention of going back to the article area, with or without the topic ban. I've already effectively been abiding by it in some fashion for months on the main article (because of the constant accusations of a conflict of interest that have constantly been disproven even when I just want to fix a typo), and I'd taken several other pages off of my watchlist in the interim. And the last time I got sanctioned heavily at arbitration, it wasn't even a day and someone was dancing on my figurative grave, and it took the community to adequately handle him. Am I going to have to deal with this again? Editors who have had it out for me taunting me? People who will definitely try to game me into a block or a ban? Several arbitrators have raised the issue of the 1RR remedy being used against me. I've got evidence already that someone has come to Wikipedia to edit war with me solely for this reason. There is a troll who reverts every single edit I make that he can before he gets caught; this troll actually followed me to another Wiki that I began contributing to in order to do the exact same thing. No one wants to help me in these topic areas because they are so esoteric or because they feel that the disputes are so childish that they don't deserve to have a third set of eyes. Or if they do help me they are so unknowledged in how to report vandals that it goes unnoticed until the vandalism happens again while I'm watching. My reports are regularly ignored or dismissed because of my history. I've been repeatedly chastised by editors for identifying sockpuppets of editors that I've been dealing with for years already. I cannot do this on my own and no one wants to help me. What am I supposed to do?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

SinglePurposePartier is saying this much more eloquently than I ever could. The battleground behavior is an artifact of Gamergate's mentality that it is fighting a war/playing a game. The "Five Horsemen" were the bosses they had to beat along the way. ArbCom is not getting the article back to normal. It's setting it back to square one, but now they don't have myself, Tarc, or TaraInDC to be there to say "this is against policy" or "that is a BLP violation". Right now, on Jimbo's talk page, Carrite is still complaining about what happened in this thread. Carrite's mindset is the problem. Not mine. Not Tarc's. Not Tara's.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Ries42, what is your predeliction with wanting me banned?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Courcelles: I only ever have Wikipedia's best interests in mind when I edit. The unfortunate state of things is that this was a rehash of the Scientology case but with a more net savvy group organizing to get a better spin when the media did not give it to them. Someone has already attempted to use the 1RR proposal against me simply because the proposed decision is advertised all over the Internet. I have done more good work on this website into the article space than any of the edits I made in this topic area that could even remotely be considered to be bad. And as I've said above no one wants to get involved with anything I get into even long before it becomes an edit war, and then a handful of the edit wars I have been blocked for were due to unidentified sockpuppets, or sockpuppets I could spot easily but no one would bother to sanction because of the incredible backlog at WP:SPI.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Loganmac, the only reason you're taking this calmly is because you are using a throwaway account and have no stake in Wikipedia. Your interests lie solely with Gamergate and it is completely insane that you are being so god damn patronizing and smug.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NorthBySouthBaranof

I find it somewhat ironic that the PD's "history of the dispute" section cites specifically several diffs illustrating the vicious campaign of off-wiki-organized harassment I have been subjected to, and then proposes to give these harassers exactly what they want by topic-banning me. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

To be quite clear, ArbCom, what you are doing here is giving into an off-wiki-organized harassment campaign, and don't pretend everyone doesn't know it. You've just written the blueprint for any contentious topic area to come — have anonymous trolls on throwaway accounts and IPs bombard BLPs with character assassination attempts, then harass and attack the established editors who respond to those efforts until enough "evidence" is ginned up to provide a pretext for topic-banning those established editors. I eagerly await the Gamergate 2 ArbCom request, when another set of established editors such as Tony Sidaway, Protonk or Bosstopher become the targets of 8chan and KiA. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is not the first time that a dispute has been imported and it won't be the last. We have put robust measures in place to deal with incoming issues,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

So you're not denying that you're basically giving 8chan and KiA what they want in hopes the problem will go away. Good to know what level of support established editors who work to defend BLPs from off-wiki-organized character assassination campaigns will have going forward — none at all. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying anthing of the kind. We have put robust measures in place on-wiki; these apply as much to BLPs as anything else. There's nothing more we can realistically do.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger, you just voted to topic-ban or outright-ban four of the five established editors who were targeted by 8chan and KiA for a vicious off-wiki-organized harassment campaign because they dared to try and stop Gamergate trolls from using Wikipedia biographies as a weapon of character assassination against Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Please stop pretending that your actions here don't speak louder than your words. I'm OK with knowing that the ArbCom has no spine and gives in to off-wiki harassment campaigns, but it would have been better to know that before, so I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to stop Gamergate trolls from comparing Zoe Quinn to a prostitute in her Wikipedia biography. Someone else can do the dirty work from now on. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing BLP violations is a laudable activity. Edit warring and enflaming issues are not. It is in fact possible to have one without the other. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 00:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The evidence cited shows that I engaged in one edit-war on the article, in the first week of September, and frankly some of the linked edits (this one in particular) involved reverting material on BLP grounds — the statement that <redacted> is untrue and actually portrays Eron Gjoni, of all people, in a false light. I admit that my behavior has not been perfect, but "enflaming issues" seems thin gruel for a topic ban. And as per Ryulong above, yes, inevitably KiA and 8chan are now celebrating wildly at the scalps they are about to claim. That was predictable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger: What admin is going to risk taking those actions under DS, knowing that if they make decisions which Gamergate supporters oppose, they will be targeted for a vicious harassment campaign by an anonymous off-wiki mob and dragged before ArbCom with entire chanboard threads devoted to crowdsourcing evidence against them? You are setting admins up to be GamerGate's next harassment targets, with the visible scalps of myself and others providing proof of the efficacy of their tactics. It is unsurprising that most admins have declined to put themselves in such a position, and I applaud Gamaliel and HJ Mitchell for being willing to step up and make decisions which invite such abuse. I would not wish upon anyone what I have been subjected to. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The below statement from Singdavion (since removed as a topic-ban violation) and the accusations leveled by Loganmac on Beeblebrox's talk page encapsulate what I and others have been warning about — any editor, administrator or even arbitrator who makes a decision that Gamergate disagrees with is going to be subjected to aggressive, hostile "investigation," claims of bias, accusations of "collusion", doxxing and anonymous abuse based on the slightest bit of personal information that can be teased out about them. This is literally the Gamergate playbook, as evidenced by the multitude of international media stories published on the issue. It will not stop with this arbitration proceeding, as is now patently obvious — it will start up again the moment any other editor or administrator acts to prevent their POV-pushing attacks on living people from infiltrating the encyclopedia, because they will be targeted for the same attacks just as surely as I and others have been. They are, even now, brazenly attempting to influence the arbitration proceeding by attacking the character of at least two arbitrators. I ask again if this atmosphere of fear is the dystopian future that Wikipedians want. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: What you are describing as some sort of sinister "misuse of sources" is merely a poor job of paraphrasing, and my failure to link the correct source. The Washington Post article in question links to, and is apparently sourced from, a Daily Dot article (also a reliable source) which includes a direct primary-source image of Brianna Wu's tweet in question, which obviously mocks and criticizes Gamergate's illogical claims and harassment. However, that source is not the only source cited for the statement in question. You missed the array of other sources already cited in that line which also support the statements in question — including MSNBC: ...a shocking debate about sexism in the gaming industry ... and the sometimes-violent reaction to women who speak out ... Brianna posted a meme, making fun of Gamergate, she tweeted things which exposed some of the problems with the internal logic of Gamergate ... she posted that., Polygon, Kotaku: Wu, who has written about the harassment against women in gaming, has long been critical of the recently-formed Gamergate movement and what she and others have seen as the targeting of women in the industry., International Business Times: Wu, who serves as the head of development at game studio Giant Spacekat, came forward in July about the harrassment directed at her as a well-known female developer in a male-dominated industry. She's the latest victim of a misogynistic lynch mob that targets women who raise the issue, some of them appearing to do it under the mantle of "gamergate," which is ostensibly focused on the ethics of gaming journalism., etc.

Similarly, the Boston Globe quote states: It mocked members of a shadowy and threatening gaming movement called GamerGate, ridiculing them for, among other things, “fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent. I do not believe it is inappropriate to paraphrase this statement — bolstered by the other sources which, among other things, show exactly what Brianna Wu tweeted — as "making illogical claims and misogynistic threats." The rest of the article's context makes clear the movement's sexism/misogyny, its "threatening" nature is explicitly stated, the threats are obviously misogynistic in nature (see, well, literally every article written about Gamergate for evidence) and the "illogical claim" is the idea that there's something wrong with there being more women programmers.

While you may disagree with this paraphrasing, and it may not be the best paraphrasing, this is hardly some sort of wild, intentional and flagrant misrepresentation of what the sources say about this matter — it was a good-faith effort to avoid quote-farming the sources. I further note that the Boston Globe-based wording you view as objectionable was up for little more than a day, as I shortly thereafter rewrote the offending section to simply use a direct quote and avoid the paraphrasing issue entirely. That direct quote has been stable in the article for three months now. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I note that even today as ArbCom votes, users continue to attack living people who have been targeted by Gamergate, here rewriting an article against the direct statement of the cited reliable source to state that the allegations against Zoe Quinn are not false, merely "unsubstantiated." I point this out because continued vigilance is required by good-faith editors of whatever stripe to ensure that Wikipedia is not used as a weapon of character assassination — concerted efforts to smear Gamergate's targets are by no means finished. If more editors would be willing to step forward, watchlist related articles and monitor for such abuses, those of us who have been dealing with this mess for months could afford to take a step back. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I call the committee's attention to Frank Wu (artist) for another shining example of the sort of vicious, unbelievable, inhuman attacks that Gamergate targets are being subjected to right now as you vote. These are not hypotheticals or guesstimates, these are real live issues requiring the constant attention of real live editors and administrators to revert and redact some of the worst sorts of slurs and slanders I have ever seen. This is what Gamergate does - they viciously attack their targets without mercy, and it is left to those of us good-faith believers in the humanity of our project to clean up their mess, over and over and over and over and over again? I implore you to consider the crux of the issue - this case is not even closed and already the encyclopedia is again being used as a weapon by sleeper-socks and anonymous trolls. Is this the Wikipedia of the future? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@DHeyward: If you are attempting to characterize my beliefs here with your statement that unfortunately some editors feel ... every gamergate supporter must be a slut-shaming misogynist, I am happy to disabuse you of that notion and quite directly state that I have never believed nor espoused such a position in any venue. The issue at hand in writing articles about the controversy has nothing to do with what individual supporters might personally believe; rather, it has to do with what the notable actions and accomplishments of the movement are and why those actions and accomplishments have created an ongoing controversy, as described by a multitude of reliable sources from around the world. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk

Is there a reason the committee totally ignored loganmac's conduct in the topic area? Protonk (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because there's virtually no actionable evidence,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

ell-oh-ell. Protonk (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

@Protonk: check the PD --Guerillero | My Talk 05:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

"With the exception of arbitrators and clerks, all editors must comment in their own section only"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was wondering this too.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC) I am now greatly regretting the fact that I didnt bother sending any email evidence to this case... Assuming the thing about changing the sanctions to arbcom sanctions passes, will I be able to use privately submitted information in a request for enforcement? Bosstopher (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC) But seriously. This is and was a topic defined by SPAs, canvassing and harassment of editors by people acting off site. If we can't at least topic ban the editor responsible for a huge chunk of that (now a mod of KiA), then what have we really accomplished? You knew this was the case when you took it and you took an extra month in deciding but somehow that escaped your attention. Protonk (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC) It's obvious at this point that this decision is about giving KiA and 8chan exactly what they want. Congratulations, ArbCom, you're a hero to anonymous troll chanboards that have been the subject of international media condemnation, have viciously harassed Wikipedia editors and repeatedly attempted to character-assassinate their opponents via their Wikipedia biographies and related pages. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC) Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC) Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement." Roger Davies, no one is asking for the arbcom to act off site. We're asking for the arbcom to ban someone on wikipedia. What's the reason why action wasn't taken on site for this obvious and ongoing disruption? This isn't just a "oh, my preferred outcome didn't happen." The community placed faith in you to handle a situation that couldn't be resolved without "private evidence" and you essentially told us to piss up a rope. Protonk (talk) 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Further, we went through this entire case and this is still our expectation of discourse. Nothing has fucking changed. The GG article will still be an unreadable mess and community sanctions will still be invoked for arbitrary and totally unimportant things. What a complete embarrassment. What a waste of everyone's time. Protonk (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This comment by DD2K encapsulates my frustration perfectly. Every single active arbitrator should read that comment and reflect on what sort of message you want to send the community. And when you decide, don't be surprised to learn that the community is listening intently. Protonk (talk)

Statement by DSA510

I thought I was already topic banned 5ever. Don't need to tell me twice. Besides, the KDE articles are very nice and tasty. The GamerHate article is ugly and boring and I'm writing about it on my blog anyways, so I don't see the need to topic ban me twice. Will I have to change my signature now? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The proposal is basically an endorsement of the community topic ban, and a conversion from that to an ArbCom topic ban. There's no topic banning you twice happening here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You aren't topic banned twice, you preexisting topic ban is now an arbcom topic ban and any appeals should be to the committee. Due to the fact that many users like to engage in endless wiki-lawyering about such things, we simply have tried to make it clear that all sanctions previously imposed by the community are now arbcom sanctions. I don't know what you mean about your signature but I'm guessing it's something silly that doesn't really matter. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not helpful or constructive. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Sexy. And apparently, according to people who read too deep into things, my signature is some sort of rape joke. Or something. And said rape joke is dark magenta and green, which is the color of that GamerHate girl or something? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Dave Dial

It is incomprehensible that ArbCom has Tarc(who was barely involved) banned from the project, TaraInDC topic banned, and doesn't even list LoganMac. There is no reason or excuse for that at all. Incomprehensible and egregious. Just the off-site harassment should have been enough for a perm ban. What the Hell is going on here? Dave Dial (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I just want to add, I know this is volunteer work and that ArbCom members spend a lot of time devoting themselves to help the project when they become ArbCom members. But I think what others are saying is that by sanctioning long-time editors who have had to deal with deplorable, egregious off-site(and many times on-site) harassment, while letting one of the main coordinators of that harassment go unmentioned, tells regular editors(volunteers themselves) and admins that protecting the project from BLP violations coordinated from off-site will not only get you sanctioned, but the perpetrators will be rewarded with no sanction. Because I can put my hand in front of my face and tell you that I'm invisible, and if you say you can see me, you're in trouble. Take care all. Dave Dial (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Just letting you know there is now also a proposed remedy relating to Loganmac. Worth bearing in mind that it is common for additioal remedies to be added during the PD phase, and that not all listed remedies will pass. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I've seen that and appreciate the work all the members have put into the many issues that come before the committee. I would also like to ask Ryulong to accept that going off-site to continue Wikipedia related discussions was something that should not have happened, and that should be the reason for a topic ban. Not that many editors don't appreciate the work editors that have been harassed for just trying to protect the project and remove BLP violations, but...In any case, ArbCom members should be aware that 8chan is organizing to disrupt the project and for further harassment of editors.

• Disruption1(Archived)
• Disruption2(Archived)
• Harassment(Archived)

Also, for members to realize how serious some of this is, please read "The invasion boards that set out to ruin lives" I have a bad case of the flu, so I'm off for a while. Take care all. Dave Dial (talk) 01:28, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies: , Perhaps you should take up @Courcelles: plea for uninvolved editors to make sure that our BLP, RS and NPOV policies are upheld in all the 'gamergate' articles. Because although the fanboys over at 8chan seem to love you now, they may not if you are the one that has to keep the BLP violations off the project. Perhaps Courcelles should add to the proposal that editors should be prepared to be harassed and should not have active links to their real life jobs, Twitter, Facebook or homes readily accessible. I have a feeling there are quite a bit of editors who stay far away from those articles and are more than happy to let others take the heat. Perhaps the members of ArbCom who have !voted to topic ban the editors who have been trying to uphold Wikipedia policies in those articles should take that job it upon themselves. Dave Dial (talk) 02:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@DGG: Regarding this comment: I wouldn't call myself a 'supporter' of these editors, since I know only one of them(Tarc) from past interactions, but I do appreciate your thoughtfulness on the matter. As I do most of the Arbs, whether I agree with their !votes or not. I would have probably come up with some kind of "exigent circumstances" clause and a suspended sentence for some of the editors, but I do understand that these aren't easy circumstances for Arbs either. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 01:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

I think the proposed decisions to ban Tarc, Tutelary and TDA seem a bit on the harsh side. Tarc has seemed to responded well from the last case in my limited observations of him since then. I likewise think the banning TDA or Tutelary seems overkill. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Cryptic

One has to wonder where exactly the committee expects to find uninvolved administrators to implement remedy 10, given how clear the eventual result will be. —Cryptic 00:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by MLauba

Good luck with finding any admins to enforce the DS for you. The message this PD sends is loud and clear: Arbcom doesn't have your back. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

You'll have to explain that ... you seem to have it the wrong way round.  Roger Davies ^talk 01:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger, the message sent by the first draft you and your two peers posted, in particular by mostly ignoring some of the most abject and vile off-wiki harassment established contributors have been subjected to for almost 5 months now for trying to uphold key policies like WP:BLP is "sucks to be you, now go away", instead of "understand the pressure, but don't let yourselves get carried away". The finding and remedies for established editors may be fine when taken in isolation but there is a massive broader context that the PD barely acknowledges (even now after the additions from the other arbs). It's both that absence and that unbalanced big picture message that reads like a clear deterrent to administer in this area. MLauba ^(Talk) 08:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The fact here is that there is no unambiguous evidence of "abject and vile off-wiki harassment" on the /Evidence page or the /Workshop page or in eight thousand words of private evidence submitted by sixteen different people. The other fact is that most of the other side (for want of a better expression) have already been dealt with by community sanctions. It is also very well-established by over a decade of bitter disputes on dozens of subjects, from the Irish Troubles, to the Pakistan-India strife, to controversy over Climate change, to Abortion, that "They made me do it" is never an acceptable excuse and thus dispute is no different. In fact, the dispute resolution policy says that if things get too much, disengage. The bigger picture is not as simple as you have portrayed it.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe you fail to understand what I'm getting at - were I to pick up my mop again and see an escalation on this topic at ANI, the PD here would be a very strong warning to stay the hell out of it. Assigning DS is all fine and dandy, but to my initial point - the PD doesn't inspire confidence that Arbcom will have the back of any admin willing to enforce them. An acknowledgement of the positives (even though this practice has gone out of fashion in the past couple of years at Arbcom) next to the errors committed would have gone a long way to address that. MLauba ^(Talk) 12:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how you can possibly conclude that from this case. Despite extensive allegations of admin misconduct, and some that has been sub-optimal, we have only commented on one admin, and then with the mildest of mild remedies. We have highlighted the exceptions to 'involved'; emphasised the 'notperfect' provision; and thanked the admin corp for their work. That said, as is always the case everywhere on the wiki, admins are expected to enforce on the basis of site policy, not personal bias, and that will never change.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

There is, however, no site policy that compels admins to act. What I conclude from the draft you, Beeblebrox and Fuchs posted is that you came down like a ton of bricks on established editors who were trying to uphold core policies, albeit getting carried away doing it, while the vast majority of those who edited and warred against those same policies were treated with kiddie gloves, or completely left out of your draft. Yes, the majority of those established editors also happen to have accumulated a history on the site. On the other hand, organized tag teams of new editors with an agenda do not have this baggage. Your draft in this case appears to be particularly lopsided due to this baggage, at the detriment of the overall benefit to Wikipedia. This is the disincentive I see. MLauba ^(Talk) 14:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

And to be perfectly clear: "XYZ has a baggage", "XYZ got sometimes carried away over the past 5 months" and "while getting carried away, XYZ did so in the best interest of Wikipedia" are not mutually exclusive statements. It's that lack of nuance in your draft that is discouraging. MLauba ^(Talk) 14:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

First, the PD reflects the evidence available and is also the consensus of more than the three named drafters. Othrs always input as they're being put together. Second, PDs in large messy cases are exceedingly difficult to put together and they always get changed a lot in the course of voting. And you go into them in the full knowledge that lttlewill survive untouched. Third, I don't think anyone has been handled with kid gloves. Fourth, cases slmost never express nuance as they always come down to black and white; it's the nature of the process.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

There is an error with regards to the claim about past misconduct. You claim I was sanctioned in "May 2012", but that is referring to a sanction on a completely different editor. I was sanctioned in October of 2012 with a one-way interaction ban under the discretionary sanctions, which was made mutual by ArbCom along with several other similar interaction restrictions in September 2013 due to the other party's conduct with regards to another person who had a one-way interaction restriction with him. Said party was site-banned soon after for conduct towards yet another person in violation of the newly imposed mutual interaction restrictions. Furthermore, the 2013 Scientology restriction was lifted by ArbCom because it was generally recognized as a wrongful sanction. The 2013 "warning" regarding Pseudoscience that you describe as a sanction is because I made two reverts on an article that had recently been subject to 1RR. As I said at the time, I had not been aware of the 1RR being imposed and gave a reasonable BLP concern regardless. Outside of the blocks in this topic area, only one of which stuck, the only block I received after 2012 was rapidly reversed as being inappropriate.

My other concern regards the claim of BLP violations. As far as I can tell this must be about the singular comment I made on a BLP talk page, but I felt I gave a very reasonable response regarding it in my e-mail as I felt there was a legitimate BLP concern to keep in mind regarding content on that BLP. I am not sure why that singular instance would be enough to warrant mentioning it when Ryulong, Baranof, Tara, and Red, have all engaged in blatantly derisive unsourced and unnecessary commentary regarding living subjects on various discussion pages in addition to some BLP-violating edits in the article itself without BLP violations being mentioned explicitly in their respective conduct findings. With concern to the rest, I see most of the evidence concerns my edits regarding Anita Sarkeesian and in that respect I raise no objection to being barred from anything about Sarkeesian. The conduct I have encountered on that page is probably worthy of its own arbitration case if it continues, but I would rather stay away from it as the environment is much too stressful and it would make it harder for me to waffle on my already stated commitment to avoiding it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe I fixed the date issue in this edit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Collapsed for space. Anyone coming here because of a certain editor's personal army request is free to review the hidden material to see that, if anything, the Arbs are being quite lenient.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As far as findings regarding the cases, I would suggest this section of evidence should be given greater consideration. Many of the comments Red, Ryulong, and Tarc make in that section are beyond the pale and more worthy of mention than the comments being used in the current findings. Baranof's comments regarding Gjoni noted in that section and his edits noted here, suggest his opinion regarding BLP changes based on how much he likes the person. There is private evidence I submitted to ArbCom a bit ago regarding his history in that regard on another event from earlier in 2014 should Arbs be interested. All of this should be considered with regards to Tarc.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 06:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC) While I recognize the Arbs are probably already set on their position regarding Xander, I just noticed that Gorman was admonished by the Committee early in 2014. I feel you should revisit the evidence I presented regarding Gorman and consider whether more is necessary regarding his conduct since it does appear to be a recurring issue. No matter what the Arbs think of Xander, Gorman did impose a topic ban in a procedurally unsound manner and also engaged in unnecessary opposition research, even reverting attempts to redact it.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 07:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC) As it concerns Red Pen, I feel that this edit and his comments in this discussion warrant attention. Both were provided in evidence. More evidence that should be mentioned are the discussions Baranof and Ryulong had with Snakebyte here and here that I noted in my rebuttals section. While Snakebyte did react poorly, it was mostly a product of the incessant and pointless berating of Ryulong and Baranof. On Tarc, the evidence section shows these diffs of civility concern: [1] [2] [3] [4]. His comments regarding harassment of GamerGate supporters and subsequent reverting over it is also disconcerting: [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. In that vein I am curious why Tarc's ANI filing is not being mentioned. Not only was he violating his arbitration restriction for the purpose of canvassing reverts or a supervote after starting an edit war, but he falsely implied all the editors in the talk page discussion who disagreed with his edit were SPAs. His attitude regarding compromise or consensus should also be taken into consideration given these edits: [10] [11] [12]. Those concern a case mentioned in evidence where Gamaliel moved against action with the last two sentences of his statement endorsing Tarc's argument about ignoring compromise or consensus because his POV was correct. As far as any improvement in behavior, I do not believe any of that is evidenced in his comments and actions since the evidence phase closed: [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. Lastly, I do believe there should be some comment regarding Cuchullain and Black Kite. Cuchullain already acknowledged he is currently involved given his heavy involvement in the Anita Sarkeesian so it would just be about establishing if he had always been involved given that the media had associated Sarkeesian with GamerGate from the outset. In that respect I believe his decision in this 3RR report and this edit through page-protection based off this exceedingly brief and limited discussion warrants an admonishment. With Black Kite I think merely stating that he is involved is sufficient as he has only taken one modest admin action of note outside revision deletions. As it stands, I do not believe Brad's concern about availability of admins is affected since one has already acknowledged involvement, even if belatedly, and the other has not taken any action of note or any recent action. Stating an admin was involved sooner than claimed and admonishing him accordingly would have no impact at all and informing an admin who has barely taken any action that he is involved is also not going to have any discernible impact.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC) I agree that Tara should not be characterized as an SPA. She has done a great deal of work on various art-related articles well before GamerGate and the size of those article contributions sufficiently mitigates any allegation of her being a single-purpose account.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC) Should the Arbs feel like the finding of fact against NorthBySouthBaranof is not sufficiently strong, then they should consider the evidence provided by Akesgeroth. Of specific relevance: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28].--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:49, 23 January 2015 (UTC) Even though Red Pen is facing an admonishment and has been previously blocked for his conduct on the draft page, this is the kind of behavior in which he is currently engaged. This is similar to past edits he has made to the article. In this section of my evidence I pointed to a diff from this conversation about Dreadstar's redacting of my comments. During that conversation I noted two other edits Red made to try and make it seem as though only some supporters of GamerGate stated it was about ethics in journalism, using derisive edit summaries in turn. There is no indication that RedPen's behavior is going to change since he surely knows this admonishment is coming and his continued presence in that topic area will only continue to inflame the situation.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 21:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jayen466: and @SlimVirgin: the BLP edits being cited for the sanctions I have challenged all took place within a discussion space, rather than on article space. On several occasions the anti-GamerGate editors being sanctioned in this case have made similar comments regarding BLP subjects who support GamerGate, only they were just soap-boxing rather than actually suggesting content additions. In my opinion, there should be a very clear distinction between discussion spaces and content spaces regarding policy. While particularly egregious stuff should be removed until a source is provided, this approach of revert, delete, sanction, without warning simply because a source contains some claims that are not accurate or a link contains a few links out of many that contain some offensive material is not appropriate. The response should not be the same as if someone was actually editing an article to add a blatantly defamatory claim about another person.

Even an explicit claim about a living person on a discussion page should at least be followed with a request for sources or a warning, rather than the rushed revert, delete, sanction, response that has typified this case, especially if the comments are not particularly extreme or sources are cited that are just imperfect or not explicit in backing the statement. There should be greater consideration for the fact that articles are what people take as authoritative on Wikipedia, not some remark from a random editor in the comments section. Another important caveat is that the vast majority of the actual BLP issues in article-space have been addressed by other editors. None of these editors are vital in that respect. If anything, their approach to addressing these issues runs counter to the interests of Wikipedia. From personal experience I have found that calm and reasonable discussion with editors to address policy violations tends to work far better than shouting them down.

These five editors, they are by no means the only ones I should add, have spent the vast majority of their edits pushing an agenda and violating policy in the process, including BLP policy. None of them should be able to cry that because they were sometimes also addressing BLP issues created by people other than themselves and had to deal with some harassment that they should be allowed to continue using Wikipedia as a platform to disseminate their own biased take on the overall subject. Seeking to characterize GamerGate as supa ebil with no good aspects whatsoever is not addressing a BLP issue and it is those edits that led to the harassment they are citing as a basis for pleading that they be protected by admins and Arbs.

We shouldn't have a situation where an editor who has been barred from a topic area for odious behavior such as this, this, or especially this, can spew a bunch of absurdly inaccurate garbage on his blog, spam it all over Twitter, and then sucker the media into bullying ArbCom to where they protect editors who are favoring that editor's point of view. I can tell you from having seen pretty ridiculous comments on this topic that Mark's really take the cake. I do not think I have seen anyone with such a bizarrely distorted view of the issues concerning this subject. Just because some unethical journalists (go figure!) actually buy into his tripe does not mean Wikipedia should cave to it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as Tara goes, the Arbs should realize that Tara simply ducked out the day after the arbitration request was filed. Rewarding her for avoiding scrutiny is not going to be beneficial and I doubt that if she starts editing again that her behavior will improve at all, especially since, well, rewarding people for bad behavior due to fear of the consequences of taking action is certain to just get them to behave even worse. The Arbs should also be aware of something else I noticed regarding a non-party who I presented evidence against. First thing in January, Tony Sidaway made this series of edits to Quinn's bio. While it was already bad due to the edits I noted in my evidence against Baranof, his edits had the effect of basically removing even the small shred of neutral context about GamerGate and without any sourcing to back up the rather absurd characterization that remained from his trimming of the first paragraph in the GamerGate section.

Here is the admin you apparently think does not need to be reprimanded, basically confirming everything I said about his topic ban of Mark as he apparently decides that someone who is still spewing asinine conspiracy theories about the people he viciously attacked before is now totally ready to contribute constructively to this topic. These are the kinds of people who you would be surrendering this topic area to if you start letting media madness influence your position in any way. If you all aren't careful eventually this won't be satire, it will just be our article on GamerGate. Wikipedia should not be anyone's propaganda outlet.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 09:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So, I restored the previous wording Tony removed from the Quinn article, which I didn't even like, and he went and reverted it right back out of the article. His defense is essentially arguing BLP, but at this point it is absurd to suggest Quinn's widely reported relationship with Grayson, what literally started this whole thing, should somehow not be mentioned in her BLP. Not to mention his removal of other details such as her dispute with The Fine Young Capitalists, which is one of the few early issues involving Quinn that most people have a hard time spinning in her favor. Two paragraphs in her bio is pretty minimal given her significant role in the whole matter and Tony suggesting that there should be even less material is absurd. I think all the quotes from Quinn about GamerGate and harassment in her bio are spreading it a bit thick, but two paragraphs discussing Quinn's involvement in GamerGate with all significant details included seems like the bare minimum. Once this case closes I won't be able to do anything about his actions, but are the Arbs gonna do anything or should someone file an enforcement request? Were it filed now it would probably be moved to AE as I doubt it would end before the case closes.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by PeterTheFourth

Very odd that Loganmac, an editor who has been very explicitly coordinating harassment on a very publicly linked account on Reddit, faces no sanctions. Given the severity of some punishments (indefinitely banning Tarc, for example), it's odd to see somebody who seems worse in behaviour get away without even a warning. Is the arbitration council concerned purely with editors past records, and not at all for their present behaviour? Recidivism seems the only reason for some very, very harsh measures. PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Just letting you know there's now also a proposed decision re Loganmac. As I've said somewhere above, worth bearing in mind that it's common for new PD's to be added as a case proceeds, and that not all proposed decisions will pass. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Very glad to see the refinements of the proposed decision- in my initial reaction to it, I was perhaps too hasty to fully consider what proposed implied about the decision and how it might further evolve. Your work is appreciated and the improvements are good. Cheers for the response. PeterTheFourth (talk) 13:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NE Ent

Re:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel_reminded

While I understand the committee's reasoning here, in this particular context -- given this was an acrimonious external conflict imported wholesale, the administrators who were willing to step up and volunteer in an exceedingly difficult arena deserve not only our thanks, but a broadly construed application of WP:NOTPERFECT. Vote no on both of these. NE Ent 02:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I broadly agree with you --Guerillero | My Talk 05:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Table absurd

Ya'll should take Proposed Enforcement Provisions out of the Implementation Notes because it's showing provisions that "require" 8 votes but "have" 0 having a . (No need to explain they don't require votes, I figured that part out). NE Ent 22:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Not worth your time

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Review_of_articles_urged is, as many of you have indicated, just a platitude. So why are you voting for it? It reduces the image of the committee as a serious, deliberative body to be passing things like that; who is the intended audience? How it going to be implemented (rhetorical questions, of course). NE Ent 23:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

More concretely

Risker Are you saying change gamergate (the ant) to gamergate controversy (the sordid mess)? NE Ent 21:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Harry Mitchell

• I have a few minor nits I might wan to pick, but I'll wait for a more civilised hour before deciding whether they're important enough
• I don't know what the shitstorm about Loganmac is about, but if he behaves disruptively on the wiki after this case, bring him (with diffs) to AE
• The proposed sitebans are correctly aimed at the most tendentious and recidivist editors, though Tarc seems to have mellowed significantly in the last few months. Has ArbCom ever done something like a suspended sentence? That might be more appropriate in this case. Note that I closed a recent enforcement request against Tarc with a formal warning rather than tangible sanctions because of a lack of evidence of recent disruption. I wonder if the message for the previous cases has sunk in, but only relatively recently? The others all have redeeming qualities, but have caused immense amounts of disruption in this topic area and by taking feuds started on GamerGate articles to other areas of the wiki. The broad topic ban might work for Tutelary with the rest of the major players gone, and if she could be encouraged to channel her energy into less controversial/more useful activities.
• I think it should be acknowledged that Ryulong and NBSB have been the primary targets of some really nasty harassment (I've seen worse, but this is probably in my top 25—have a look at the Dragonron SPI, for example), but that that doesn't excuse misconduct. In fact, this reminds me of the Fae case, which set the precedent that editors should distinguish between harassment and good-faith concerns, and that pointing to the harassment you've received does not absolve you of responsibility for your edits. I think NBSB's heart is in the right place, but we've reached a point where all the entrenched editors need to be removed if we're to have any hope of this dispute settling down.
• I was surprised by the lack of a finding against Cla68, who was sanctioned by a clerk for misconduct during the case, and whom I blocked and topic-banned for further misconduct while the case was ongoing.
• It should probably be noted somewhere that Xander756 is indefinitely blocked. I assume the topic ban is intended to come into force in the event that he's unblocked?

—My thanks to the drafters for the obvious thought and care they've put into sifting through this mess. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd just like to offer a few thoughts on some of the FoFs and remedies that are struggling. I'm not trying to give a comprehensive party-by-party critique, so no inference should be drawn regarding anything I don't comment on:

• Gamaliel: The issue here is that Gamaliel has offered commentary on content issues as an ordinary editor, and then at some point began acting in an admin capacity. It's a significant straying from best practice, though nobody seems to have questioned any of the actions he's taken. The very fact that he's the sole admin named in this PD might be sufficient remedy, but the proposed reminder is not disproportionate.
• NBSB: I'm in two minds about the proposed findings and remedies. For the most part, he has been attempting to enforce policy but has sometimes done so in a sub-par manner. Ultimately I think all the entrenched editors need to be removed, because it's the only way we're going to get progress.
• TRPoD: As I see it (in case it's not obvious, I was the admin who imposed the two-day block under the community sanctions), the problem with TRPoD's conduct is that his comments have frequently been personalised, condescending, or acerbic (the phrase "acid tongue" was used in one discussion of his conduct, but I can't remember by whom). Taken as a whole, his comments (both on talk pages and in edit summaries) and his aggressive reverting—even on a draft page, were there was no BLP issues at stake—contribute to the toxicity of the atmosphere in the topic area. I'm no saying he's the worst and certainly not the only offender on this front, but his tone conduct has been sufficiently sub-par sufficiently often that I think the FoF is merited. The proposed admonishment is probably sufficient given his previously clean record; hopefully it will get the message across that he needs to tone it down and nothing more needs to be said. If that proves not to be the case, the issue can be brought to AE and the admonishment will be taken into consideration there.
• Ryulong: Sorry, I don't dislike the guy—he's only been polite when we've spoken—but a siteban is the only option. He is a major part of the problem here, his intransigence is a significant part of the reason this ended up at arbitration, and a significant problem elsewhere. Moreover, the issues with his conduct here are exactly the same as the 2009 arbitration case and every sanction in between. He gets into edit wars all over the place, even on Pokemon and esoteric Japanese anime articles, and he approaches things with a battleground mentality. The feud with David Auerbach is one of the most childish, pathetic time sinks I've seen in my five years as an admin. The number of ANI threads and sanctions enforcement requests that were started, derailed, or extended on the issue, not to mention all the other places these two took their ridiculous bickering. Auerbach's conduct was also deeply unimpressive, but he doesn't seem to be the only person with whom Ryulong has carried on childish feuds related to GamerGate—the disputes with Loganmac and Cla68 were equally absurd, though on a smaller scale, and partly resolved by the sanction imposed on Cla68.
• TDA: an FoF on his accusing every admin in sight of being "INVOLVED" wouldn't go amiss, especially if arbs desire some of those admins to return to enforcing policy in this topic area. As is implied in the FoF, TDA is a long-term tendentious editor who moves from one controversial topic area to the next, and has been sanctioned under four different sets of discretionary sanctions. This would have been picked up a lot earlier had we had the central log that is just coming into force. A topic ban would just be kicking the can down the road. NYB well describes TDA's style as locating the editorial controversy of the moment and hurling gasoline on it, so I'm surprised to see him opposing the proposed siteban.
• Tutelary: I understand the concerns regarding the breadth of a gender and sexuality topic ban, but if a siteban is undesirable (and I can sympathise with that, given that she's not a veteran of these disputes unlike some of the others), some sort of broad topic ban is needed. All of the issues with Tutelary's conduct relate roughly to issues that are of interest to both feminists/feminist movements and the "men's rights" movement. If she could be persuaded to edit elsewhere, she could be a valuable member of the community.
• DSA510: I'm not sure a siteban is really necessary, though I understand why it's being proposed. I indef'd him, and I wouldn't have unblocked him if I thought he was a lost cause. Basically, he spent a long time doing little other than making a nuisance of himself, but since the unblock seems to have heeded my advice to focus on the mainspace and avoid GamerGate like the plague (which was the condition of unblocking). I can't imagine him lasting long if he returned to his old ways, so I'd say there's no harm in giving him some rope.

Put bluntly: the community has failed to resolve this, largely because of the conduct of entrenched editors on both sides. The only way it's going to be resolved at this stage is to remove all the warring parties in the hope that more moderate voices can prevail. To do anything else would be storing up problems for a later date, and we get enough of that at ANI. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Harry, that's actually a very helpful summary. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thank you for acknowledging it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: Acknowledging your objection. It's a difficult call as to where, precisely, the line is. I'd have drawn it more conservatively, and maybe (maybe) I'd have had the foresight to see the accusations of INVOLVEment coming. But then I've spent five years at AE dealing with the sorts of tendentious editors that surface in topic areas like Israel-Palestine, so perhaps that experience makes me much more wary of such things. For what it's worth, I don't doubt your good faith or your personal integrity, and I've never had cause to question any action I've seen you make. While I disagree with where you drew the line here, it looks like you're going to come out of this mostly unscathed, and I'm certainly not disappointed about that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'd just like to commend Courcelles' proposed wording of "gender-related dispute or controversy". I think that adequately addresses the scope of the issue and prevents this dispute from being exported to another topic area without being hopelessly broad and open to endless wikilawyering. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

As Chris Kyle (or the movie version thereof) said, "I'm willing to meet my Creator and answer for every shot that I took." I entered a contentious topic area to protect living people from abuse at the hands of the identified "pro-Gamergate" editors named in this Arbitration, as well as the hordes of SPAs on the periphery. I do not care about the topic itself, I just cared that the organized 8chan/reddit trollfest needed to be thwarted. And thwarted it has, as mainstream media has come down hard against them, and that isn't going to change regardless of who and who is not still standing as an editor here in the morning. My transgressions in this area were mild, were quite a long time ago in the grand scheme of GG, and have nothing at all to do with past Arb cases. Aside from a brief dust-up this past week, I've barely been involved in much editing at all, it was time for a break.

Several of you bent over backwards to retain Corbett in the GGTF case despite his Mt. Everest-sized "recidivism", drafting a heightened civility parole to do so because he is a vested editor. Try doing the same for those editors who were doxxed and harassed for 4+ months when they stood up to a bunch of attackers who continuously and egregiously violated WP:BLP. Tarc (talk) 03:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Arbs, out of curiosity, are any of these 11th-hour presentations of additional evidence or re-highlighting of previous evidence actually being considered, or are you all at this point just dotting the i's and crossing the t's on a done deal? Are the rest of us who are sitting here waiting for the shoes to drop missing an opportunity? Tarc (talk) 04:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Hard people have to make hard choices; we can't fight an anonymous hate-filled mob without getting some dirt on our clothes. IMO I feel I got as little as I possibly could on myself thought this whole affair, and I am heartened that at least some Arbs saw this, but sadly not a majority. I stand behind every action I have taken in the Gamergate topic area, and regardless of who is still standing when this is all said and done, I consider this a net positive outcome, as the topic area will now be closely monitored, and the 8chan/reddit brigade will not have one iota of sway in shaping the article as it goes forward. As for American Sniper, it is an amazingly excellent film. Carrite, you rise and sleep peacefully under a blanket of the very freedom that men like Chris Kyle provided. Remember that. Tarc (talk) 17:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Obsidi

I think the siteban of Tutelary, Tarc, and The Devil's Advocate are a bit too harsh. I would be fine with topic bans for all of them. I am a bit surprised that with an explicit finding of battleground conduct that TheRedPenOfDoom wasn't topic banned. --Obsidi (talk) 04:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I vehemently disagree with the use of this diff to support the allegation that Mason was POV pushing. He was talking about impartially presenting facts which we can "source to RS" and to not include "claims about others without evidence." As Mason says "We're not here to judge them, right or wrong." This is far from pushing a POV. Several of the other diffs used to claim Mason is POV pushing are where he is trying to explain the difference between facts and opinions in a way entirely consistent with NPOV policy and specifically WP:IMPARTIAL. --Obsidi (talk) 08:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Spirit of Eagle

I’ve attempted to stay out of the GamerGate debacle, but this needs to be said: For the last few months, I’ve been watching the non-stop attempts of GamerGate supporters to add personal attacks to articles, harass editors and in general turn Wikipedia into a propaganda mill. The editor’s currently on the chopping block have for the past months attempted to prevent GamerGate abuse, and have suffered through heavy harassment from GamerGate as a result. Yes, they have sometimes behaved uncivilly, made some rude comments, and perhaps even edit warred a bit. I am, however, asking the arbitrators to please consider the relentless abuse the editors on the chopping block have had to work through, and to think about what kind of message banning them while letting an organizer of harassment completely off of the hook is going to send to us. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Arbitration cases can appear rather brutal on the surface when, as here, they concentrate on using their huge fiat power to set the table for a stable editing environment. Reading the proposed decision with an eye to those remedies that appear most likely to pass, I don't see much to complain about, and I applaud the proposed move to Discretionary Sanctions. I'm satisfied that the sanctions regime already operating has been responsible for the very great improvement in the editing environment over time, but the promotion is due and will amplify this trend.

One thing is missing: a proposal of a vote of thanks to the "happy few" administrators who have stepped up and enacted General Sanctions enforcement, while most others (albeit with good reason) shrunk away. I believe they have been so few over the latter stages of this case that they should be thanked by name as a credit to their calling. Anything that encourages admins to come forward. --TS 05:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I just read the new proposed remedy called "Sanctions available", which spells out the discretionary powers available to administrators and explicitly thanks those administrators who have taken so much flak for doing their job.

Please pass this remedy resoundingly, and ensure that the clerks correctly highlight it on WP:AN. The administrator corps must be coaxed out of their inappropriate and destructive timidity. Shake their windows! Rattle their walls! --TS 19:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Loganmac

Mhm how am I a single-purpose account? As far as I can tell I have made edits to several wide ranged topics. And Roger Davis said a few minutes ago that there was "no actionable evidence" but voted yes to topic-ban me.

And I kinda fail to see how this [29] is WP:BATTLEGROUND when I was just describing the general state of the article, I really don't get this. And this was kinda adressed by Jimbo [30] when at first info on GameJournosPro was being kept out. Two of those were rude maybe, and I apologize, but these were almost 6 months ago, my conduct has been, and more when compared with the general state of the Talk page, civil and at times unnatached (I don't remember the last significant edit I made to the actual GamerGate article). My edits to the Milo Yiannoupoulous article was reordering and copy editing, no actual info was introduced. My edits on 8chan were mostly to fix BLP issues linking Fredrick Brennan with child pornography. It's sad in my humble opinion to see my vote being one sided while votes on other users who have long-standing histories of uncivilness are divided, when I haven't even been blocked since my account creation in 2007. I'd also like to point out that there were only two cases against me in the General Sanctions board, one got boomeranged and the other was closed as "lamest request ever". Oh well Loganmac (talk) 06:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

As Singdavion pointed, I don't feel fairly judged by GorillaWarfare at all, I ask that she please reccusses like she did before Loganmac (talk) 09:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Loganmac The SPA thing mainly derives from the overall picture. 8chan (36), Talk:8chan (12); Gamergate controversy (31), Talk:Gamergate controversy (202); assorted Wikipedia space pages (189). Total, 470, which is a huge chunk of your 800 total edits, and that's not counting the user talk stuff. Sorry, but by any reasonable measure, you're an SPA,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:40, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

For what is worth, I'd also like to point out that I contributed to the Spanish encyclopedia [31] and have IP edits when I couldn't get back on this account around 2011 if I remember right. I'd prefer if the actual quality of the edits was at least analyzed to see that I haven't inserted bias and have adhered to reliable sources. My number of edits in the GamerGate article, like I said, is minimal (an average of 6 edits per month), and I only mostly got into the 8chan page after seeing a BLP violation. I think the essay WP:SPA get thrown around too easily when one should look for users that are here merely to disrupt/troll, like I'd understand from newly created accounts who do nothing but edit GamerGate articles. Loganmac (talk) 02:52, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking at all the drama I'm surprised I'm the only one that took this calmly, advise for other people, move on. Wikipedia shouldn't be your only hobby, try not to think you have a personal mission to defend the goddesses from those vicious Internet terrorists. Also it's at least noteworthy that Wikipedia as an entity got to feel what it's like to be misrepresented by reliable sources by 3 outlets saying almost the same, and quoting the same source, a random guy's blog who got blocked for showing the worst case of uncivility I've seen. Loganmac (talk) 06:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Bosstopher

I was wondering how come there's no FoF's about conflict of interest issues, namely Ryulong (with his money) and Loganmac (with his unrelated doppleganger who just happens to be moderator of the biggest Gamergate subreddit). Also how come Masem's suggestion of 1RR was decided against? Bosstopher (talk) 11:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: On the issue of more diffs regarding Tarc, User:Starship.paint collated a large number (of admittedly dated ones) here Bosstopher (talk) 14:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Why does FoF #2 only refer the to threatened doxxing of NorthBySouthBaranof? Ryulong, Tutelary, Titanium Dragon [32] and DungeonSiegeAddict[33], all had their real life identity released against their will, and Ryulong was even doxxed on wiki[34]. Tutelary was doxxed twice once by Wikipediocracy and once by 8chan. Why is the abuse they faced not acknowledged? Bosstopher (talk) 15:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

IMO, it is always a bad idea to memorialise doxxing. It gives some people ideas and others the satisfaction that their activities have produced a reaction.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. But in that case why is the harassment NorthBySouthBaranof recieved being memoralised? Also at risk of being annoying and pushy, could you respond to my first questions? Given User:Weedwacker also expressed interest in them, I think other editors would also appreciate knowing the reasons behind those choices if possible. Bosstopher (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Weedwacker

I'd like to echo Bosstopher's first comment above me about the conflict of interest issues and Masem's suggestion. I think these should all be addressed by the committee. I also agree with Tony Sidaway's statement above that the topic area has improved under sanctions and will improve with the upgrade to discretionary sanctions, as well as his statement that admins should be thanked for their participation. I have had disagreements with Gamaliel in the past but support the decision that he only needs a reminder. Weedwacker (talk) 20:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Avono

Are the two arbs who voted on the alternative findings of fact concerning Ryulong aware of the Auerbachkeller incident? Ryulong has misused sources. Avono (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by EvergreenFir

Any findings on those "zombie" accounts in addition to the SPA and throwaway accounts? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, why not try to model the topic bans re: gender/sexuality on the wording used in the paraphilia and Manning cases? Not sure what the hemming and hawing is over the current wording... EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

EvergreenFir - acknowledging the existence of the zombie accounts in these articles, am interested in your view on why they pose a problem. Essentially, what is the difference between an old account reactivated to edit Gamergate, compared to a new account, or an ongoing active account, doing the same thing? In your view, is the issue that zombie accounts are more likely to be disruptive and less likely to approach the articles in good-faith? if so, why should that not be assessed on the basis of the current edits rather than the earlier account history? Euryalus (talk) 03:44, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Euryalus Thought on this overnight and I suppose in the end, they're not much different than new accounts. I guess I would just like to see a mention of them. My experience is that zombie accounts are SPA and POV-pushing and used to avoid autoconfirm restrictions. I guess I find them more suspect than a newer account in that I wonder why they were resurrected (user dug up old account because something impassioned them enough to edit? to circumvent autoconfirm restrictions? because the account is shared by multiple users?) While that's assuming some bad faith, usually some questionable action prompts me to look at edit history in the first place. But as you say, in the end they aren't that much different from new accounts and it's their present edits that matter (unless they've made a history of waking and sleeping the account to pov push or avoid autoconfirm restrictions). Anywho, thanks for asking. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

EvergreenFir, no worries and thanks for the reply. I can't see this affecting any of the PD outcomes in this case, but its an interesting topic. If you or anyone else have further thoughts on SPA/zombie accounts in WP, please let me know (probably on my talk page or by email). -- Euryalus (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Ries42

I have stayed for the most part away from this Arbitration Committee hearing as it predates my involvement with the site. The ArbCom process, as I have stated before, is why I initially joined WP. I'm fascinated by it. I do not envy any arbitrator that is forced to deal with any issues here. This is an area ripe for misunderstandings and frankly, no matter what decision is finalized, there will be many unhappy parties.

There has been a lot going on, and every editor involved up to this point has had to deal with issues far beyond the scope any WP editor should ever have had to deal with. Some have handled it better than others. The important takeaway from this, I feel, is that Wikipedia stands for certain ideals and should be able to expect the highest levels of candor, decorum, integrity, and respect for the mission from its editors. It would not be noteworthy or commendable if such were easy to do so. It is commendable because despite the hardships, an editor is expected to rise above both that which would distract him both within and without. This topic has been a trying test, and not all have been able to live up to those ideals. No one is perfect, failing is to be expected. The important thing is to take responsibility and attempt to move forward and avoid those mistakes in the future.

It with this said that I would like to point out a statement that been made on this page. Ryuulong stated this, moments before my statement. He refers to two issues that are in evidence to my knowledge, his incident both on and off wiki with Mr. Dan Auerbach, and his accepting of monetary compensation in relation (though perhaps not directly in quid pro quo) with this subject area. He shows here how he takes responsibility for those actions and how he view his actions.

The question I ask the Arbs, is if they felt that the actions he took were in anyway detrimental to the ideals of WP, is this the mindset you want to encourage and support. The action that is taken here, and the action that is abstained from taken here, will both reflect how Wikipedia is viewed after this case has ended. Ries42 (talk) 23:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ryulong: If WP is about who you are, and not what you have to say, then I both deserve to be banned and would not wish to be here. Ries42 (talk) 00:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Arbs/@Roger Davies:: Should proposal 11 be updated with the new standard topic ban language? Ries42 (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@Clerks: I'm trying to parse the voting on Remedies 5.2. The current vote count states 2-6-1. After the latest vote, I read it as 7-6-1. Is this correct? (Notes: Supports:

1. Beeblebrox (First Choice), 2. Roger Davies (Equal First Choice), 3. David Fuchs (First Choice), 4. Guerillero (Last Choice, but his other votes are a package and 1RR is currently not passing, thus wouldn't this be a support now?), 5. Salvio (First Choice), 6. T. Canens, and 7. Courcelles (First Choice unless 1RR passes). Native's vote doesn't pass as his is listed as last choice and Topic Ban and Warned are also passing with his vote, and he did not mention a package like Guerillero.

Ries42 (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ryulong: I'm interested in ArbCom. You just happen to be the most interesting party here. Then again, I know your opinion of me. You made it clear within the first few days of me joining WP. Ries42 (talk) 23:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tstormcandy

Disclaimer first: I had originally posted in Evidence concerning the harassment and off-wiki organizational efforts against a number of the editors in this case, but later removed for several reasons including my own username being mentioned on external forums for merely referencing the off-site activity. Since then I've had a change of heart and decided I'd rather be defiant on the matter assuming I could possibly make a difference although I have little power to do so. That said, I'm disappointed that some of that off-site effort seems to have borne fruit against certain editors who were extremely bold and survived incredible circumstances in the pursuit of upholding BLP standards.

It is my opinion that a number of the proposed remedies are in contradiction to Remedies #1 and #10 (AC/DS and SPAs/POV pushing), or at minimum do not adhere to Wikipedia's very real and continuous battle against BLP concerns. As some FoFs and PRs state, topic bans and even full site bans are up for vote for editors and administrators who dared to stick their heads out and perform edits similar to those that would be required to enforce #1 and #10. I feel it sets a poor precedent to put other members and administrators at risk with a threat of retaliation by both off-site organizing and sanctions from within ArbCom itself. My removed evidence could be summarized as "please don't let the bullies win", and although I appreciate that much care is being taken to certify specific FoFs and future disruption to the Encyclopedia can be prevented by various PRs here, an off-site presence will remain and perpetually await new victims.

Few editors will dare to enforce or uphold these matters knowing doing so could instantly poison their entire existence on Wikipedia (or beyond, into social media and day-to-day life), covering everything from topic bans, blocks, calls for desysopping, full site bans, future requests for user rights or in theory even desiring to be a candidate in future ArbCom elections. That someone cared enough to enforce #1 and #10 could forever tarnish their good standing in any way, shape or form is simply unacceptable. I can't pretend to understand the full situation as I did not review evidence or participate in the Workshop for the case, but I must beg the Arbitrators to do what they can to protect persons going above and beyond the call of duty in preserving the integrity of the Encyclopedia even if they have committed other minor transgressions in the process. ♪ Tstorm(talk) 01:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Gamaliel

I was going to avoid commenting, but I strenuously object to the characterization of my actions offered by User:HJ Mitchell, that I was acting in the capacity of an "ordinary editor" and only later "began acting in an admin capacity". From my very first comment on the matter in August, I believe I was clearly acting in an administrative capacity. I believe part of the role of an administrator should be to encourage policy compliance, and that role is all the more necessary on articles bombarded with new editors. It's not advocating for one side or another in an editorial conflict to point out that the article needs to follow reliable sources or to point out to editors they can't discount those sources because of their own conjecture or conspiracy theories. How they use those sources (within policy) is up to them, and that is the role of an editor, not an administrator. I believe all my comments were in the capacity of the role of administrator, not editor. Did I do a poor job in that role, as I have in the past? Did I write too bluntly or quickly and make statements that appeared to blur the line between those roles in the minds of some editors? Those are legitimate questions to ask. But to flatly state I was playing one role and then another is not consistent with the facts.

I should also note that HJ Mitchell and I appear to be the only administrators currently working on the GamerGate sanctions enforcement page and to my best recollection at no point has he noted to me any objections about the role I am playing there, any of my decisions, or any of my comments on that page.

I am aware of the balance that needs to be struck between making sure that all administrative actions appear to be above board to everyone and the danger of providing an incentive to troublesome editors to tactically "disqualify" administrators willing to impose sanctions. Given the frivolous nature of the complaints from partisans and the nature of this case, here I dug in my heels and went in the latter direction, but I want to be clear that I am aware that this is a decision that needs to be made, and sometimes the former is the better option. I would love to leave this matter behind, and when other administrators have worked on this matter I have tried to let them take the lead when I felt that I could. In a perfect encyclopedia, a sufficient number of administrators would do what HJ Mitchell has done and help with enforcement, and that way even the most minor and frivolous case of "involvement" could be dealt with by leaving it to others. Harry has been invaluable, and I am grateful that he is there even if I object to this one particular statement, but he does not scale.

On an unrelated note, it has been suggested to me that the Committee should make a strong statement making it clear that they are concerned with the welfare and reputation of those living individuals who have been maligned by editors involved in this case. Personally, I believe that obviously the Committee is concerned with such matters and that they fall under the general BLP findings already offered. But this might not be readily apparent to those unfamiliar with Wikipedia, so I offer this second-hand suggestion. Gamaliel (talk) 02:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell Thanks for your response. I think we agree about more than we disagree. Gamaliel (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

DHeyward I have been on Wikipedia since 2004. Of the articles you mention that I recall, I have not actively edited them since my early years of Wikipedia. Since then I've added over 65 thousand edits to the encyclopedia and interacted with probably hundreds of editors. I apologize for my poor memory, but I do not recall you at all from those articles, nor can I find your user name in the talk page archives of the years where I most heavily edited them. Gamaliel (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Slim Virgin:, that was me, I tried to topic ban Titanium Dragon under DS for repeated BLP violations before the special GG sanctions had been discussed, but I neglected to warn him with the DS template because I thought the article talk page template was sufficient and because I did not take enough time to handle the matter thoroughly. I bear the sole responsibility for that error, though I do agree that DS rules are overly confusing to admins and do stymie enforcement as a result. Gamaliel (talk) 02:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Liz

My only comment is that there are multiple threads off-wiki that are following these proceedings so fervently, they refresh the page frequently to see if there are any new votes. Yet, they know little about the ARBCOM process and are scrutinizing each arbitrator's vote in a way that I think is unhelpful to the overall resolving of the case. ARBCOM cases always bring scrutiny but I've never seen this vote-by-vote analysis from noneditors. I think the effect of pressure from off-wiki groups should not be underestimated especially if votes don't go as certain groups want. I think all arbitrators should secure your social media accounts, regardless of how you vote. This is not meant to be alarmist, it just reflects a backlash that I've been a witness to for six months now. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward

First, I second HJ Mitchell's characterization. In a very broad sense, noted by the committee regarding involvement, Gamaliel is involved. My personal experience with Gamaliel goes back 9 years to Daniel Brandt, Michael Steel, Joe Scarborough, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and other ancient history articles. Recently it's been Breitbart. Nevertheless this interaction and involvement didn't stop Gamaliel from endorsing a sanction as an "uninvolved" admin. I practically have to invite him to family reunions. He's involved and he doesn't seem to think so.

Second, there are huge WP:OWN issues by NBSB and Ryulong. Their cries that offsite boards are rejoicing is a clue that they should not be editing the articles. The ultimate goal of any NPOV wikipedian is that no one notices your edits and the world could care less if you continue or stop. The real problem isn't so much that the issue is controversial, the problem is that certain editors have become tied to it. The offsite trolls don't "win" when their anthropomorphised enemy loses shape by removing the object of heir scorn. The offsite trolls lose focus and wikipedians no longer fear being associated with an editor that is subject to harassment. A topic ban may seem like punishment, but it is in the long-term interest of Wikipedia. John Glenn flew in space once. Only once. Not because he was a bad astronaut but because his stature was larger than the risk. At some point WP has to realize that retiring personalities from topics is necessary to move forward beyond WP:OWN even if the editors don't like it. --DHeyward (talk) 04:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B. Someone pointed out that Glenn flew again at age 77. A 30 year hiatus should be enough and I don't oppose. --DHeyward (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B.B. My sentiments regarding Gamaliel are only in regards to articles related to politics. Overall, he does an excellent job as an admin but my history and knowledge makes it predictable (or questionable) as to his neutrality in politically charged topics. I don't doubt his intentions. I strive to be neutral but that doesn't mean I am unpredictable. We are shaped by our world view and "fair" and "neutral" are relative terms. Sympathy falls to our hearts and is inescapable. Knowing where our sympathies lie is halfway to understanding how neutral we will be. I don't expect Gamaliel to be neutral in his assessment of political topics but that doesn't mean he can't be neutral or fair in other areas and his 65k topics and countless editors are not political. --DHeyward (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B.B.B. I support a site ban of TDA. Only because I don't see what he would do if the committee just banned him from noticeboards (does he even edit articles?). Gamaliel honestly stated he doesn't recall our interactions and his word is enough. TDA on the other hand would be able to generate hundreds of diffs that are out of context and wikilawyer positioning in the most negative light (he's the lawyer that I want, but the lawyer I despise on the news). I could spend time doing the same but it is vexatious to be so tedious with evidence. I wish I had either the time or magic tool but I simply don't. It is extremely stressful and unnecessary to be subjected to a TDA onslaught. In this case, TDA and I largely agree in conclusion but vary widely in approach. I've defended his targets previously and it is a colossal waste of time. The end result is unchanged but the volume of evidence is 10X what is necessary. --DHeyward (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

SlimVirgin The big part the Guardian story missed is that those bringing attacks were dealt with along the way. So-called "defenders" were not. Their behavior is being scrutinized. Their behavior has anthropomorphised the off-wiki attacks of both subject and editors as they have been singled out. Not every Gamergate supporter supporter is a slut-shaming misogynist and not every anti-gamergater is a man-hating trans woman feminist. Unfortunately some editors feel my first statement is not correct and every gamergate supporter must be a slut-shaming misogynist. Their behavior to maintain that narrative is limited to a few editors and generally have remained unsanctioned throughout. In no way should five editors be the face of Wikipedia on any article as there are many that protect it from attacks and BLP violations.--DHeyward (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Titanium Dragon

Oddly, I hadn't been pinged by this page until today. In any case, all I've really got to say is a couple things:

1. It should be remembered that the off-site harassment (doxxing) sustained by Tutelary and myself was comparable to that sustained by user:NorthBySouthBaranof and user:Ryulong, and thus giving what "off-site" people want should apply equally to the lot of us. I don't think it should matter at all as far as sanctions go, personally; what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong.
2. I'm really confused why you think there needs to be a "broadly-construed" gender-related topic ban on me; every single complaint has been about GamerGate and nothing else, specifically the Zoe Quinn and the GamerGate articles. I'm not a very active editor on such subject matter, but it feels quite bizarre and excessive given the circumstances. If you feel my behavior on GamerGate was excessive, fine, but why a broad topic ban when I've no history of causing issues in other articles?

Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sodaant

General comments about recusals are outside the scope of this case. They are governed by the community approved arbitration policy. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My comments are not directly related to the decision itself, but rather the topic of recusals, particularly GorillaWarfare, which has been brought up before my multiple users, with what feels to me are unsatisfactory responses from the arbitrators in question. Part of this I suppose needs to look into what a recusal is really for. In my opinion, its not simply to avoid bias in the eventual outcome, but rather to avoid the appearance of bias, regardless of whether there is any at all. This is very important because people are in general very bad at gauging their own level of bias on a subject. While some bias is inevitable for a case like this, where the events in question have generated significant media attention, there still need to be standards. Personally, I feel that multiple tweets directly related and professing an opinion on the controversy in question goes far beyond that line, even if those tweets were just on a small part of the controversy. A good guideline for recusals here is probably the United States Code section governing recusals, which states that federal judges shall disqualify themselves "in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Note that it doesn't say that their impartiality must actually be an issue, just that a reasonable person could question their impartiality. I feel that any sort of reasonable observer would take a tweet like the final one in this image: http://i.imgur.com/bjPHwcl.png to be a pretty clear indication of bias on the subject. (there is a full album that contains other similar images, but I feel that one on its own is enough to make this point) Recusals are of even more importance when handling very high-profile cases, where every possible aspect of the decision and the process to get there will be scrutinized down to the last detail. Lingering questions of bias will taint an entire decision, whether it would have actually made a difference or not. Finally, in the spirit of above, one should not be able to unrecuse themselves from a case, under any circumstances. If anyone feels strongly enough to recuse themselves, they obviously have good reason to do so. Bias is unlikely to simply go away, even if one thinks it does. Once again, appearance matters, and recusing oneself and then reversing that decision simply appears to be the exact opposite of impartial. SodaAnt Talk 07:31, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TheRedPenOfDoom

How do the arbs see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Parties_topic-banned_by_the_community and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Discretionary_sanctions, particularly "ii) All sanctions in force when this remedy is enacted are endorsed and will become standard discretionary sanctions governed by the standard procedure from the moment of enactment." interacting with the proposals under Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Tutelary_.28remedies.29? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 07:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The more specific provision always prevails (cf. Lex specialis), therefore Tutelary's community topic ban is replaced by the one we are voting on, assuming it passes, regardless of any more general provision contained in the decision. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Re Tutelary comments-if my comments about gamergaters are in fact referring to other editors, then those COI editors should identify themselves. i will apologize to them. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

One hopes the arb com is able to weigh what is best for the encyclopedia. from everyone's favorite trollhaven:

"Just a reminder to everyone to not edit on wikipedia anything gamer gate related while this is running as you might change the outcome of the decesions.

not possible, arbs are voting on stuff that they have been looking at for weeks

Well lets not risk it anyway. What harm is waiting just a little longer?

How about when the smoke clears and certain drama queens with selective interpretation issues are out of the way we put together a proper fucking NPOV article. Rushing back in there like an angry horde isn't going to help. That's what people need to be reminded about.

Wikipedia has always been absolute shit on controversial topics, and this entire project is going to remain an uphill trek no matter what the administrators do. The absence of warring administrators will slide right back into warring editors. The only way to keep this article alive is to source it well. "Shut the fuck up and source" should be the motto.

There have been several dozen positive developments since the page got locked down, such as many publications adopting improved ethics policies and the new advertising rules. There has also been a slow uptick in positive media stories. The assertions that this isn't about ethics are going to look far less credible alongside that concrete information.[[35]

] -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I would also encourage the arbs to take a look at Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Gamergate#2014_notices to see the level of disposable meat the offsite forces are able to generate to toss into the grinder. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@Euryalus: It is the duty of the ArbCom to act in the best interest of Wikipedia and if the views from outside of the Wikipedia bubble help the ArbCom to realize what acts are in the best interest of Wikipedia, it is of relevance. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:10, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

hi, thanks for the message - I've explained my rationale for hatting the thread, on SlimVirgins talkpage. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The rationale is understood. However, the request to step out of the Wiki bubble and consider how the actions of the committee will actually be impacting the disruption of various forms that will face the project as a result of their decisions in this case, remains. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by starship.paint

@Courcelles: - regarding your statement on Tarc at 02:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC) ... you may wish to read this at 09:45, 11 January 2015 (UTC) if you want five or six more examples of edit warring. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 11:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Roger Davies: in Tutelary's section regarding Loganmac and SPAs. I saw that proposed findings of fact on Loganmac included being an SPA. If so, another party, TaraInDC, should be declared an SPA as well. See all contributions since August 2014. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 03:18, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @Euryalus: - you opposed twice at Tutelary banned. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 07:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks Starship.paint. Apologies for the error. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tutelary

I've been a bit busy with my own personal life, and when I finally come to take a look at Wikipedia again, the proposed decision was posted! Regardless of whether I'm banned from the site or have my topic ban rescinded, I'd like to give my thoughts on the proposed decision:

• There doesn't seem to be much addressing of the admin complaints in the topic area. Only Gamaliel is mentioned, the other contentious administrator being Future Perfect not deserving a mention?
• There is also no mention of the re-factoring which is suspect to be inappropriate. I know my own evidence section presented a good amount of diffs for this occurring, and even diffs where somebody removed somebody else's post just because they accidentally posted it at the top, rather than the bottom.
• With all of these topic bans and proposed bans, why does RedPenOfDoom get to get off with a simple admonishment? I'd like to reaffirm some evidence I presented in my section, probably lost in the sea of diffs. Note that these are not new diffs, only ones posted on the evidence page might have been overlooked. [36], [37], [38], Implicating editors are 'misogynists', [39], [40], [41], [42] RedPenOfDoom at least deserves a topic ban for this behavior, in my honest opinion.
• The diffs of me reverting closure on the drama boards should be looked at again. One of those diffs wasn't related to GamerGate, and at least 3 of them were me reinstating my withdrawal of my ANI complaint about potential administrator misconduct. I had received adequate response and decided to withdraw due to it being a plausible action, my own courtesy allowed for my complaint. The last of them, reverting closure by Future Perfect and Mdann were right to list and I am thoroughly sorry for them. The context behind my revert of Mdann's closure is that Mdann effectively used ANI to say that 'There was a consensus at ANI to remove the tag' when there was no such thing, and the closing message was wrong, as there was active discussion on the talk page about such. Nonetheless, I should have used the proper channels to challenge such a close.
• There is also no comment about how quickly the community closed the discretionary sanctions discussions (23.5 hours) and how Future Perfect closed an active topic ban proposal on Ryulong. The latter is why I reverted Future Perfect's original closure, as there was an active topic ban proposal proposed on Ryulong yet it was closed nonetheless. Again, I should have used the proper channels to point this out rather than reverting it outright. Discussion is often better than reverting.
• My ban proposal I believe is much too harsh for my own conduct (not that I'm an unbiased source) but from the diffs presented, only one edit to the talk page which was listed. The proportion or the amount of disruption needed to warrant a topic ban or a ban are unknown to me, but I would like to know them.
• Loganmac is not a single purpose account, as his editing background goes far beyond only GamerGate. If ArbCom does engage with this in mind, it might alienate editors who regularly contribute as a single purpose account, perhaps to a single article with no incident. People edit the topics that interest them, who would've thought?
• I'm not sure if this is proper procedure, but there seems to be administrators who are from the last term (which has run out) who are involving themselves in this case. One of these is Newyorkbrad. I'm not stating anything, just that arbitrators who are not arbitrators anymore are acting as arbitrators in this case. I'm not sure if there's a 'grandfather' clause.

Thanks. Tutelary (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Strongjam for the note on my talk page about that. Tutelary (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Re; Loganmac and SPA. See this diff,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe it's been answered on why RedPenOfDoom deserves only a simple admonishment, when everyone else is getting either a tban or other restrictions. His conduct was just as bad and importantly, consistent on the page. Tutelary (talk) 20:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Konveyor Belt

The amount of proposals on Ryulong has ballooned to a point such that none of them will be passed because every arb has their own first, second, and third choices, and each wants a different level of punishment. Especially the three different TBAN proposals. KonveyorBelt 23:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Pudeo

Re Roger Davies in Tutelary's section: NorthBySouthBaranof's last 6000 edits or so are related to Gamergate (add "&offset=&limit=6000" in contribs url). Is he a SPA too, in that case? (And christ that's a lot, my last 5000 edits go back to 2006!). --Pudeo' 02:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Willhesucceed

Today was the first I heard of any possible sanctions against me, through a ping. It would have been nice if someone had let me know about it.

I haven't made a Gamergate-related edit in ... months, and have steered well clear of controversial topics for almost as long. Nowadays, I mostly comment on talk pages of which Legobot notifies me. If I do edit something, it's mostly to proofread or source specific video games' articles, with the occasional detour to random articles.

I stopped making edits to the Gamergate page within the first week or so, if I recall correctly, and mostly commented on the talk page thereafter, and haven't done even that in a long time. There's no need to impose sanctions on me. I have no interest in participating in any of the social jockeying or politicking that Wikipedia is so fond of. Willhesucceed (talk) 05:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved GoldenRing - topic ban wording

Can I respectfully suggest the following wording to the committee:

X is indefinitely prohibited from making any edit about, and from editing any page related to (i) the Gamergate controversy, (ii) gender politics and (iii) LGBT rights, all broadly construed.

This seems to me to cover the intent of "gender and sexuality" without the problem of covering trivial BLP matters. Sorry if the suggestion comes rather late in the process - I've been camped on a beach for most of the last week. GoldenRing (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TaraInDC

I for the most part have declined to even pay much attention to, let alone particpate in, this case, as anything I might have added in the way of my own evidence has been said better by others, and since checking it at the end of the last day of the (extended) dealine for the evidence phase have more or less ignored the project entirely. I therefor missed The Devil's Advocate's enourmous just-after-the-bell additions (among which was the bulk of the evidence entered against me in the case) until well after the fact, and while I can't say for certain I would have chosen to add to the noise of that page with a reply (which no doubt would have resulted only in counter-replies and counter-counter-replies), the fact is I didn't even have to make that decision because I didn't see it until the opportunity was clearly well past. So for now I'll just note that at the time of the comments which are apparently so severe as to warrant banning me from all gender-related topics (seriously?) it had proved nearly impossible to get any standards of conduct enforced on that page, and the standard of conduct was frustratingly low. I don't see any evidence from after the one and only caution I've received from an admin on this article, from Dreadstar for this edit, at which point Dreadstar began actively warning many editors for personalizing disputes and improved the overall conduct on the page considerably (what do you know, the project works better when admins step up to enforce the rules!)

Broadly speaking, though, any incivility or 'combative' behavior you've seen from the 'five horsemen' is largely due to the extraordinary lenience which obviously disruptive editors have been shown for much of this dispute. This is simply what happens when you go too long without enforcing policies regarding conduct, in any forum. We're talking about a campaign organized by people who have been publicly digging for information on wikipedia editors to add us to their hit list, all in support of a moment that's taken to endangering lives by fooling cops into showing up at innocent people's houses with no-knock warrants. And, to be perfectly frank, as the only one of the so-called 'horsemen' who is plainly and obviously a woman (with the others, to my knowledge, identifying as men or not making their gender apparent), I have felt particularly vulnerable to the hate mob who has spent the last six months terrorizing women out of their homes and their careers. I'd refer you back to Sir Fozzie's comments on a prior arbitration request regarding this off-site coordination, which he referred to as a '"Death by a Thousand Cuts" on the folks trying to edit by Wikipedia's stated policies, continuing a low level harassment (more accurately badgering, but you get what I mean) campaign generally aimed at making them lose their cool and then being sanctioned away from the article, allowing the aggravating parties free(r) reign to slant the article more in their favor.' If you allow these tactics to work here, they're simply going to continue using them, and as has been noted several times, it's simply going to get harder and harder to find new blood on this article or any others this angry and dangerous anti-feminist group takes an interest in.

As for characterizing me as an SPA: I have a years long account history including creating several new articles and participation at multiple WMF sponsored edit-a-thon events. Compare editors who have accounts that were inactive for years with fewer than 30 edits prior to returning to polish gamergate's reputation on wikipedia. The SPA page explicitly states that editing an article primarily or exclusively for a time after establishing a diverse contribution history does *not* make you an SPA. If i'm an SPA by the definition being used for this case, can anyone present another editor with a similar editing history who is also being characterized as an SPA by the committee? -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Further, I am concerned that Masem's behavior seems to have almost entirely escaped notice, with one finding of fact which doesn't seem to take into account the most serious issues (as raised by Red Pen here and NBSB here and here). Setting aside this editor's own edit warring, nearly every interaction I've had with Masem involved him repeating vague comments about 'clinical neutrality' or accusing other editors of attempting to skew the article to say outright negative things about Gamergaters 'in Wikipeida's voice,' but refusing to cite specific evidence or offer actionable solutions. He has held back progress on that page substantially simply by bogging down every discussion with nonspecific 'concerns.' This, and his habit of dividing nearly everyone on the page but himself into 'pro-GG' and 'anti-GG camps' (also in evidence) is simply disruptive behavior, and there is at least as strong a case for 'battleground' behavior on his part as there is for any of the established editors who were targeted off-site for their supposed 'bias.' TaraInDC (talk) 11:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And nobody has replied to my question here, but I see that one has compared me to Logan Mac on the decision page. Logan Mac's account had around 30 edits and had been inactive for years when he returned to edit Gamergate related articles in August. Mine had hundreds and had been inactive for months. That's not a fair comparison. TaraInDC (talk) 12:01, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I would like to thank TaraInDC for her service, and also thank ArbCom for its efforts to see that her deployment at the GamerGate topic is coming to an end. Please permit me to give some context: to my knowledge, four women associated with WikiDC have suffered negative real life consequences and concerns related to their participation on this site; consequences and concerns that I would characterize as stemming from an atmosphere hostile to women. I don't know the details on GamerGate [TM] and have no desire to find out, but I believe that TaraInDC, a content creator who I have met at WikiDC in-person events, is a person attempting a good faith effort to ensure that women are safe online and in our organization. I hope that TaraInDC will be permitted to continue creating content at WikiDC events, including events with feminist themes, under the terms of this decision. --Djembayz (talk) 14:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. But you're not actually supposed to edit in other people's sections. :-) TaraInDC (talk) 23:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

TDA, it is not possible to 'avoid scrutiny' here just by disengaging. Even if there were not a mob of off-site rabble rousers digging through page histories to find 'dirt' on me and the rest of their hit list, my absence from the article would not (and did not) prevent you or anyone else from presenting evidence against me and I had no reason to expect that it would do so. Your assumption of bad faith on my part is at odds with the fact that I remained active while the previous arbitration request was open. I didn't 'duck out' to 'avoid scrutiny,' I found myself with far less free time as my work schedule changed (and had been active less frequently prior to your filing as well.) By the time I even had an opportunity to look the evidence page over I found anything I could add would have simply been repeating what others had said better, and it would have been one drop in a very, very large bucket.
I've chosen not to return to the article in the recent weeks since my schedule has relaxed because the additional eyes that the cases had attracted meant that I was far less concerned about the possibility of the article being used to further the harassment of gamergate's victims - for the earliest months of the dispute, the extreme difficulty of getting any outside admin attention on the article and talkpage meant that Wikipedia was very frequently host, however briefly, to seriously defamatory information about gamergate's various targets casually added by a downright surreal number of editors who were evidentally so sure that they knew better than any reliable source that they showed absolutely no regard for WP:V or BLP policy (and some of whom I note are still merrily editing the article today with no danger of sanctions from this case.) At that point, to my mind, whether I or anyone else was sanctioned or not the worse excesses of the pro-gamergate mob were being properly curbed, and I had and have very little interest in continuing to expose myself to the endless circular arguments on that page, much less to the wrath of 8chan. I simply wanted to see how the project would handle the dispute and what the fallout might be before I decided if I wanted to return to editing at all. TaraInDC (talk) 23:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite

Can somebody please explain to me how Gorilla Warfare can recuse at the time the case is proposed more than two months ago and then go ahead opining and voting on sanctions when the case comes to a close? Carrite (talk) 13:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tarc. How fitting that you cite a Hollywood glamorization of a military sniper as a justification for your behavior on the subject in question. Carrite (talk) 13:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I've been active on the case since several days after it opened. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:48, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I personally think you had recusal right the first time given a couple of the (small) minority votes you cast. Carrite (talk) 15:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

I just want to note that this case has been written on by the Guardian here [43]. The piece seems to be predicting some results before the case is properly closed. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It was noted below; this isn't really the best place to discuss that, as mentioned by the arbitrator who hatted it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:47, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Xenomancer

The Ryulong remedy calculation is a little vague to me. Can someone please explain how the first/last choices and their distribution are factored into the final totals? I think it would help settle things and cause less confusion for such an explanation to accompany the results. Xenomancer (talk) 08:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

I haven't followed this case, and in my experience the Arbitration Committee is generally good at assessing evidence at the case level, so I assume that the proposed topic bans are all individually merited. Still, the media coverage of this case, which portrays the Committee as conducting a "purge" and making what we would call a pro-"Gamergate" content decision, should be cause for concern because it has the potential to damage the reputation of Wikipedia. Although this coverage probably reflects a flawed understanding of our dispute resolution mechanisms, its potential effects should be taken into consideration. One way to address this could be to convert the topic bans (on both sides of the issue, so to speak) into some sort of probation, which could be easily converted to topic bans at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard in the case of recidivism. This would remove the impression that this is a concerted purge, and would decentralize responsibility for any bans that may still need to be imposed. If the Committee decides to go ahead with the proposed decision, it should do so only after consultation with the Wikimedia Foundation's public relations officer, who may be able to help in preparing a statement that helps explain the decision and our arbitration system to non-Wikipedians, and who may need to answer questions by the media.  Sandstein  08:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Thargor Orlando

I have basically tried to stay away from this page during the proceedings. With that said, those coming here to comment based on the misleading, clearly-biased Guardian article should be implored to read the evidence page before commenting on what ArbCom is doing. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by 5 albert square

I have noticed some people opposing The Devils Advocate being blocked saying that they're not convinced that we've come to this stage yet. You only have to look at the editor's block log to see that they have been blocked a number of times and given countless last chances. You've said on the project page under the heading "Enough is enough" "When the community's extensive and reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may, as a last resort, be compelled to adopt robust measures to prevent further damage to the encyclopedia, disruption to the editing environment and to the community" So, if after numerous warnings and last chances this still hasn't worked, at what stage do we say "enough is enough" and you are site banned then?

He's been sanctioned at AE in all kinds of controversial topic areas and it's obviously not made a difference. What makes you think that this one will be any different? At what stage are you going to say that enough IS enough?--5 albert square (talk) 15:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:Retartist

Question: what's with the table at the bottom in the proposed remedies concerning Ryulong? it says there is no support votes when i count seven, is this an error or something i don't understand? --RetΔrtist (разговор) 22:59, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Since the arb's votes are so convoluted, they are being tallied at the bottom and then marked as passed or not in the table --Guerillero | My Talk 00:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Barberio

• "Gender" is a much more broad topic than I think the committee understands, and to be frank the interpretation of what are and are not "Gender" related articles would put this all back in ArbCom's lap again. Particularly as the following "people associated with" and "broadly construed" causes allows for an expansion of this scope that is again more wide spread than the committee understands. As written, the problems with identifying the "broadly construed" topic of "gender", and anyone who has ever had any involvement with "gender", amounts to a ban across a huge swathe of articles. (For instance, "broadly construed" it would cover every single TV channel that had run a historical show about Emmeline Pankhurst. Which is clearly absurd, and I hope not the intent of the committee.) This was poorly drafted, and is either unenforceable or horribly draconian if it were enforced as written. I think there would be no community support for the as-written ban, or great dispute towards people who did try to enforce "broadly".
• Nothing I see in this arbitration seems to address the root cause of this case, I do not understand how the recommendations will prevent this all happening again if other administrators become the focus of co-ordinated harassment campaigns.
• As this stands, it serves as a "Chilling Effect" towards expert editors from the realms of gender studies and feminist theory. From my reading, I certainly get the indication that it was a supported opinion that being a feminist Admin could be "projecting a point of view", which is a rather concerning misunderstanding of Feminism, and perhaps blindness to Wikipedia's systemic demographical bias. Balanced POV and Feminist are actually the same thing after all. If this is not what the committee intended to say, they need to redraft.

As a side note, I have some concern that this case is the point at which Administrators are turned upon for not being saints in the face of sustained harassment campaigns. Wikipedia has long had a culture of giving administrators a wide degree of tolerance and latitude for their behaviour, particularly with regard to reverting changes to biographical information. Those who recognise this user name will know I was a long time critic of this culture. Having allowed this culture to solidify over a decade, it has resulted in admins adopting it as the standard practice.

This goes on to mean that admins will be reluctant to get involved in disputes that may result in heated tempers and arguments, because there are no clear lines or generally accepted ways to conduct themselves. This results in a situation where only the hottest of the hot-heads are likely to want to engage in the difficult stuff, and then only small numbers of them in each area. Which opens up Wikipedia to a kind of "swamp this area with dispute then rile up the admins who respond" attack to focus controversy on a target article or biography.

This draft arbitration does little to address this root cause, instead it says "If you intervene in a tricky dispute and don't act like a saint, you might end up banned from all the articles you are interested in editing!" while failing to recognise that the Wikipedia culture has done very little to actively discourage hot-headedness in admins. --Barberio (talk) 23:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Barberio. Your comments expose a number of misconceptions.

1. It is not "gender" that is under discretionary sanctions but "gender-related disputes and controversies", which is much narrower in scope.
2. There are two separate issues here, not one. These are (i) the external campaign and (ii) the internal disputes among longstanding editors about how it should be reported in our articles.
3. The Committee is powerless to resolve the external campaign. This is a matter for, where appropriate, real-world law enforcement bodies. Nevertheless, the Committee has highlighted the routine measures that can be employed against people parachuting into the wiki seemingly as part of the external campaign.
4. The Committee can do something about the internal disputes and the blocs of long-established editors involved in them. It has highlighted the existing policy measures that can be used to resolve them.
5. Not a single administrator has been sanctioned by the Committee. To make our intentions clear, we have voted to pass a FOF dealing with borderline 'involvement' and declined to pass even a mild remedy. The clear loud message here is that admins need not fear sanction for in this dispute. The principles include an analysis of the 'involvement' exemptions already available when dealing with BLP issues.
6. Not a single editor has been sanctioned for their actions in dealing with the external campaign. The sanctions relate exclusively to misconduct in internal disputes when interacting with other existing longstanding editors.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify these important points.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:31, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I encourage you to attempt to find any article on this wiki that is related to "Gender", that does not touch on a dispute or controversy. And even if we narrow, again the 'Associated' and 'Broadly construed' clauses mean that an on-face reading of this ban means that an article on a TV presenter who had once presented a history show about Emmeline Pankhurst, would be covered by the 'broadly construed' association. The problem is 'broadly construed' combined with something that was pretty broadly scoped in the first place, added to 'by association', covers a much much wider amount of the wiki than you acknowledge.

Further, that this is then blanket remedy applied as a potential remedy to all parties is concerning. This seems like a time-saving practice taken from past cases that really does not fit here considering the wide scope it needs to be stretched to in order to cover everything. This is not the case for a blanket remedy on all parties who acted incorrectly, because there are very very important differences in intent and action. Is it really appropriate that editors, who had been targets of a harassment campaign, and who did not have malicious intent be given what amounts to a wide-scoped blanket ban, instead of bans directed at much narrower specific behaviours?

Again, it is still a large chilling effect towards experts in the realm of Gender Studies and Feminist Theory from editing the wiki, as the precedent exists that if they are targeted by a massive harassment campaign and lose their cool, they may be barred from editing a wide scope of the wiki covering their expertise. The blanket one-size fits all remedy is a poor tool being wielded without precision, and will set a bad precedent and create a potential chilling effect.

I also note that "We can not do anything about external harassment" is a fallacy. There can, and should, be internal support available for editors and admins who are harassed by external forces for honest work on wikipedia, starting with clear recognition and acknowledgement that they are being harassed, and things such as calling for other editors to take over, or throwing a spot-light on a part of the wiki that's being subverted by these means. That wikipedia has few such resource, or functional ways to say "I'm being targeted for harassment due to maintaining community standards at these pages, please send support within the wiki to add extra weight of people.", is in it's self a problem.

While you say that there are "routine measures" that can be employed, the actual guidelines on external harassment constitute two paragraphs that basically sum to "Nothing we can do". So these "routine measures" do not appear linked up as a response to external harassment, rather they may be measures that exist to address vandalism that have some over-lap that could have been applied. But the lack of a cohesive strategy of what to do when there's an off-wiki organised harassment campaign is a problem.

Had there been a better internal wiki-structure to see when editors are being off-site harassed to try and undermine community standards, and allow editors and admins to focus on those areas to give a larger weight of people supporting community standards, this case may never have been needed.

I also think that the "there is nothing we can do about off-site harassment" mindset is in it's self harmful, precisely because it closes you off to all the things that can be done on-wiki. This arbitration case is a sign that "there is nothing we can do about off-site harassment" is not working, but it has not been addressed. --Barberio (talk) 12:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I am very concerned to read comment here from Roger Davies that seems to state that he believes there is an "anti-gamer gate" side that should be treated as if they were also a partisan threat to wikipedian consensus. Opposition to a harassment campaign is not 'picking a side' in a partisan squabble. The intent of the "gamer-gate" side was to disrupt Wikipedia with false information to support their wider harassment campaign. The intent of the "anti-gamer gate" side was to stop them doing this. You will note, that also includes Wikipedia who's BLP policy sets it against the "gamer-gate" campaign. Intent matters, and I am deeply concerned that there has been a false division into "two partisan sides", and then a false sense of "Impartiality" by treating "both sides" the same. --Barberio (talk) 12:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Vachovec1

Please fix a double vote in FoF 5 (NorthBySouthBaranof). Two votes from Guerrilero are counted: #5 support nad #1 oppose. The table in Implementation notes section says that vote count is 11/3/0, which is definitely wrong. It should be 10/3/1 or 11/2/1. Regards. --Vachovec1 (talk) 01:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by SinglePurposePartier

While I didn't intend to be when I first signed up for the great adventure that is wikipedia (my glib username, aside), I've turned into something of an SPA. Nevertheless, forgive my intrusion into Wikipedia's high court on these issues.

I think ArbCom has failed to look at one of Wikipedia's most cherished principles: WP:IGNORE all rules.

Take a step back from the bureaucratic process for a second and take a holistic view on what happened in this case. In August, a woman was targeted in an intense campaign of harassment. Ever since, those who have tried to keep that campaign from infecting Wikipedia have become subject to harassment themselves, much of it taking place beyond our metaphorical walls. There were calls to action on certain other websites, infographics with instructions on how best to manipulate Wikipedia's processes for personal gain. There were organized campaigns against regular editors of this project. They were given a nickname, The Five Horsemen, and vilified across the darkest corners of the web. And yet, here they are, being banned from editing one of the topic areas that needs them the most.

Clearly, the arbitrators are failing to see the forest for the trees. The piles and piles of evidence is certainly important, but fixating on the minutiae fails to tell the whole story. The admonished editors have, indeed, lacked the decorum Wikipedia expects of its participants. They no doubt have to answer for that. They let the frustration with the process get to them, and they lashed out. Even if they were doing the right thing, they weren't always going about it the right way. I think, in their heart, they know that. They became part of the story, as it were.

But that is a smokescreen, a sideshow. Name-calling, edit-warring, and uncivil behavior is not why these editors are being sanctioned today. Maybe to ArbCom it is, but not to the breeding ground for the hate that led to this entire saga. These editors are being sanctioned because they attempted to stop the harassment campaign from spreading. It really is that simple. Had they not ventured into the topic area, very likely they'd not find themselves here. Yes, by disobeying Wikipedia's core policies, they opened themselves up to discipline. But in disciplining them, ArbCom has given their (and by extension, the project's) enemies exactly what they wanted.

Has ArbCom not asked themselves why this case was requested three times in a relatively short span? Has ArbCom not realized why there's more evidence presented about these five editors than any others, despite there being so many more community sanction enforcements on other accounts? Has ArbCom not ventured outside the playground and seen exactly what goes on in the places this hate spews forth from?

I hoped ArbCom would understand when one of their own was targeted by this group for the sole reason of identifying as a feminist, but apparently that has been unmoving to the majority.

The soon-to-be sanctioned editors decided to WP:IGNORE the rules to make this project better. They saw harassers come to this site under the veil of WP:GOODFAITH and they tore the veil off. It was ugly, but the right thing can sometimes be ugly. They didn't fail Wikipedia; Wikipedia has failed them. They spent months defending the project from this campaign only to have Wikipedia turn its back on them when they needed it most. Maybe that's the right decision by the book, but it's not the right one for the project.

Maybe the discretionary sanctions will keep the peace on the GamerGate article, and maybe they won't. It doesn't actually matter. That's not really what this ArbCom case was about. It was about the rules, and whether or not Wikipedia would allow them to be manipulated for nefarious deeds, or if they would WP:IGNORE them when it was the right thing to do. These harassers bet that it would be the former, and their bet turned out to be right. Of course people identifying as "GamerGate" supporters would know how to game the system. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 07:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think you have read the case very closely at all. There are two aspects to this issue, the external campaign and the internal disputes. The internal disputes involve blocs of long-established editors with varying approaches to how the external campaign should be reported in our articles. The sanctions relate purely to misconduct within the internal disputes. Unless and until these are calmed, no editing consensus is possible.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

With respect back, that is not the case. I haven't read much Wikipedia case history, but I have become fairly well-versed in this case (unfortunately). I think that notion is actually where the problem lies. The internal disputers are absolutely part of the external campaign, and it seems ArbCom can't quite recognize that. WP:AGF is all well and good, but it's led us to this point: where people are being sanctioned for removing BLP violations that were very likely added maliciously- yes, even by longstanding editors.

This isn't really a debate with two sides acting in good faith to reach consensus. It's not even a debate with two sides acting out of bad faith to settle a political score. These editors were dealing with, and are continuing to deal with, assertions that are simply not supported by reality, and those assertions just so happen to be horrendous BLP violations. That editors would become annoyed at the repeated attempt to reinsert those BLP violations into the article (and the subsequent harassment they endured) is not surprising, nor is their failure to abide by the cordial tone we're meant to edit with. Sure, that's unacceptable and sanction-worthy. But is the solution really to ban them from the topic area? Particularly when that topic area is "gender-related disputes." a topic so broad as to contain many things unrelated to this controversy?

I think the problem I'm having, and the problem others seem to be having, is that these harassers have explicitly organized in order to ban these five editors from working on the article. Now that's happened. They've gotten what they want. I'm not suggesting ArbCom did so intentionally, but that is the result. And so, even if you're banning these editors for justifiable reasons, the message that sends to the harassers is clear: the plan worked. Annoy wikipedia editors, engage them in edit wars, insert BLP violations under the pretense of "asking questions" and then, when the longstanding editors break a rule, drag them to be sanctioned and use their lengthy edit history against them. The fact that they're longstanding will only work to increase their punishment; the decision itself speaks of recidivism, an artifact of a long wikicareer.

Of course these five editors have made mistakes. No one is suggesting otherwise. Frankly, the findings of fact are not particularly in dispute either, merely the remedies. Topic bans are wrong, here. These editors are sorely needed in the topic area. What's needed more than anything is reinforcements- more administrators and editors as dedicated to protecting the article from BLP violations as they are. It's easy for organizers outside wikipedia to focus their attention on five individuals, but it's much harder for them to do it with a broader coalition.

I think you're failing to see that there actually has been editing consensus among longstanding editors as to the reliable sources. This consensus has been in place for months, and is only disrupted by folks who feign good faith arguments to the contrary. Rather than seeing these five editors banned from the topic area, I'd much rather see creative solutions imposed that mitigate some of the edit-warring while still allowing them to remain active in the topic. Solutions like the 1RR rule are steps in the right direction, but not paired with a topic ban.

These editors have helped protect the project far, far more than they've hurt it. It's a shame ArbCom hasn't recognized that. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 09:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm expressed my support for Roger Davis's position in the voting, but there is another aspect which the supporters of the topic-banned editors should consider. If you look at the early stages of the voting, you will see that there was a very real possibility for several individuals of not just topic-bans, but site bans from Wikipedia. These eventually did not pass. (I remained indecisive,and abstained on some of them. I would have supported most of those very strongly except for the consideration that they were in fact trying to defend against what I consider outrageous harassment.) DGG ( talk ) 21:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I find this reasoning rather wanting. "Be glad we didn't ban them from the entire site" really is not something the Arbitration Committee should be holding up as a great achievement. Rather, I think that in and of itself illustrates the problem with this case. There's clearly a false equivalence being championed by arbitrators such as Roger Davies comparing the actions of the topic-banned editors and those harassers and BLP violators. That simply isn't the case. There are not two camps of entrenched editors. There are wikipedians and there are those who wish to use wikipedia to slander living people. This wasn't a good faith debate that became too heated. It was a group of editors defending the page from slander.

Picture a minefield. If someone ventures into the minefield to defuse a mine and accidentally blows it up, would you charge them with a crime? Or would you rightly see the person who laid the mine is at fault? On Remedy 4.1, Davies says "Our role is to get the article back to normal as rapidly as possible and we will not do that by handing it back to the poor admins having failed to pass an obvious remedy." And therein lies the flaw. These topic bans are rushed, and will absolutely not solve the bigger issue, which is that this topic area is full of new and returning users who add BLP violations under the veil of good faith questions. Go look at the Talk page right now. It's back to the same old mess.

The issue with this decision is that it's solving the wrong problem. In searching to "get the article back to normal as rapidly as possible", ArbCom missed the actual cause of this case. A handful of passionate wikipedians who mistepped in their tone is not the problem. The battleground mentality was imported to Wikipedia wholesale from other corners of the internet, and it took out these five editors. It's distressing that ArbCom has seemingly ignored that in searching for the quickest possible solution. Rather than solving the real problem, which might take time, ArbCom solved the problem that didn't need solving, and now this topic area has lost some of it's best editors. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Wikipedia editors come from all walks of life and they reflect a huge spectrum of opinion. This is what gives Wikipedia is vibrancy and energy. For Gamergate, blocs have formed reflecting different ways of reporting the external issues. These disagreements are complex and the only way that exists in policy to resolve them is by discussion and consensus. Trying to stamp down on these internal disagreements by saying "you're either with us, or against us" (or as you put it "there are wikipedians and there are those who wish to use wikipedia to slander living people") simply makes these disagreements more toxic and more difficult to resolve because they don't address what the internal disputes are about. As is often the case, the complexity and sometimes contradictory nature of policies, with their exceptions and exemptions, and the existence of WP:IAR, make it difficult to resolve internal disputes swiftly ad cleanly. This is a longstanding systemic problem and I'm not clear how it can be fixed.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound hostile. I absolutely value the work you and the other arbitrators have done on this case. I understand how you arrived at the decision you arrived at and I see how a reasonable person could have looked at the evidence and arrived at that place. You're clearly doing what you can, within the bounds set for ArbCom, to keep the peace on the English Wikipedia and its constituent articles. I don't mean to criticize you personally, and I hope I have not come off that way. I very much appreciate your taking the time to respond, even amid the drafting of this decision.

I think the inherent flaw, however, is the assumption that the disagreements on this article are complex. They really are not complex. There are small disagreements among wikipedians about how to handle various sources, certainly. The debates between Masem and the principally sanctioned editors are perfect examples of those kinds of debates about proper weighting and maintaining an informative article. Those debates are wikipedia working, and those are part of the vibrant and and energetic process you speak of. If these were the only debates occurring in the topic area, there likely wouldn't be an ArbCom case. But, the evidence presented is not from those debates.

Those debates have been overshadowed by the battleground-style discussions that have been imported from off-site. It is in these conflicts where the sanctioned editors made their mistakes, and this is why it is surprising that ArbCom has not shown a bit of leniency.

I understand the need to resolve this dispute quickly, and I understand that there is only so much ArbCom can do to handle this. But banning these editors from the area is not the way to solve the issues that plague that article. The article is overwhelmed by bad faith arguments masquerading as good faith arguments, and until that problem is solved, the conflict will continue. In fairness to the yourself and the other arbitrators, there doesn't seem to be a way to fix that, so I understand why in feeling the need to act, you've chosen to sanction these editors.

But, there is a reason these five editors in particular became so prominently connected to this article, and it is that others were too timid to enter the fray - a fray that was begat by tendentious editing from a small group of off-site harassers. Other editors on this page have attested to that feeling as well. The topic ban doesn't hurt these sanctioned editors (I should think they'd be thrilled to be rid of the nightmare that is attempting to edit that article. Ryulong has already said as much). It only hurts the encyclopedia, because it's allowing good editors to be chased away from that article and scaring others from pitching in to help out. That's far worse for the project than a handful of editors snarking about Gamergate in edit summaries. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 05:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Jéské Couriano

Wondering how much of this campaign has been conflated with the overall GamerGate controversy, I wonder if adopting remedies similar to what happened with the Bogdanov Affair would suffice? Sure, there may be little power to do anything about the issues offsite, but if the people involved in the "pro-GamerGate" side wish to import the "dispute" any further into Wikipedia, it needs to be made unambiguously clear that they can't expect to do so without consequence. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 09:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Jéské Couriano. Thanks for raising this and for your reminding us about an interesting remedy. To all intents and purposes, the assumptions in the remedy are already part of the practical application of policy. New editors turning up and making POV-based edits to a topic are usually removed swiftly (generally as "suspected socks" or a similar workaround). More extreme edits can be (and are already) handled by existing our BLP and personal attacks policies. And, by the way, there's the "anti-GamerGate" side off-site and they too have been active on-wiki. There is however plenty of scope for us to do a Cliff Notes type thing outlining how discretionary sanctions and/or existing policy can be used with good effect to address the issues and we'll hopefully be posting something on that shortly,  Roger Davies ^talk 09:50, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Jayen466

Dear ArbCom, I understand you make rulings based on behavioral criteria rather than content. It's not wise though to ignore content altogether, though, as the current media backlash against this developing decision illustrates:

• http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/23/wikipedia-bans-editors-from-gender-related-articles-amid-gamergate-controversy
• http://internet.gawker.com/wikipedia-purged-a-group-of-feminist-editors-because-of-1681463331
• http://pando.com/2015/01/23/wikipedia-tacitly-endorses-gamergate-by-blocking-its-opponents-from-editing-gender-related-articles/
• http://www.themarysue.com/wikipedia-gamergate/
• http://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/hoe-gamergate-wikipedia-blijft-vervuilen~a3835403/
• http://derstandard.at/2000010843264/Eintrag-zu-GamerGate-Wikipedia-sperrt-feministische-Nutzer

These articles are getting significant traction in social media.

There were exceptional circumstances at play here, and that should be borne in mind in deciding whether and how to sanction established editors who tried to deal with the influx of SPAs. Yes, the Guardian article and its spin-offs contain inaccuracies, but there is still enough truth in the story for this to become quite as big a controversy as Categorygate did in 2013.

Do consider your decisions, and their wider implications. (I'd recommend a re-reading of Newyorkbrad's votes and comments throughout the Proposed decision page. There's very little in them that I would disagree with.) Best, Andreas JN466 15:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about anyone else, TotientDragooned, but to counter your confident assertion that others will step into the breach and take up any slack that arises when those editors are taken out of the picture, I'll mention that you couldn't pay me to step into that morass. Andreas JN466 17:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

see my response to SinglePurposePartier, above. The alternative to the topic bans, would have been site bans, which might have passed except for the exceptional circumstances. DGG ( talk ) 21:32, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TotientDragooned

The articles linked by Jayen466 are clueless about how Wikipedia works: that even being on the "right" side of a dispute is no excuse for tendentious ownership of an article. The named parties have turned the GamerGate article into a battleground, and need to be removed: this does *not* mean that the trolls will win, rather, plenty of other editors will step in and keep out the SPA POV-pushers. TotientDragooned (talk) 16:50, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

There are two ways this case could have gone. The committee could have stuck with its usual principles in hotly disputed areas with off-wiki unpleasantness: topic-ban all entrenched POV-warriors and let fresh blood sort out the mess. The other way would have been to endorse the anti-GG position, and make a strong statement about how fighting a coordinated campaign to harass living persons using Wikipedia excuses tendentious battleground conduct as a lesser evil. I would have been fine either way, but the way the case is progressing is to waffle between the two: no strong condemnation of Gamergate anywhere on the one hand, and fewer and fewer topic-bans passing as the case drags on. It's the worst of both worlds. Outside observers, who misunderstand Wikipedia policies and the role of arbcom, still think the decision is sexist, while the decision loses all of its on-wiki teeth. TotientDragooned (talk) 06:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement below is step in the right direction. TotientDragooned (talk) 03:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TDBanker715

The dilemma is similar to dealing with banned editors. Good article contributions bad civility. While I do believe some of these proposals are justified. A time frame should be decided as to how long they should be banned.

What does the period in the result table mean? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TDBanker715 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As we sadly lack the ability to predict when each editor will be able to contribute productively, or when the issue will simmer down on-wiki, I think it actually makes more sense to have indefinite topic bans that are appealable within a set time period, such as these. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

I started a discussion about this yesterday here, but Euryalus hatted it, then Callanecc removed it. I understand that the committee wants to keep these pages clean, but the upshot of this format is that the discussion is difficult to follow.

Euryalus asked me to post a statement in this format if I wanted to add anything, but I really only have a question. Are the people who violated BLP on women's articles, or in articles containing biographical material about the women involved in Gamergate, going to be topic-banned from writing about women and gender issues on Wikipedia? I believe I saw this broader remedy at an earlier stage, but it seems to have disappeared (unless I am missing it). Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 22:15, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The lack of threaded discussion is a feature, not a bug --Guerillero | My Talk 22:45, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

We were originally voting on the topic ban wording per person being topic banned; we decided to generalize the topic ban wording a few days ago by switching to a Scope of standard topic ban proposal, and then referring to that for each ban. The original proposals were worded as "[user] is indefinitely prohibited from making any edit about, and from editing any page relating to, (i) the Gamergate controversy or (ii) gender or sexuality, all broadly construed." We did not add this to the updated proposals because it was being opposed by most arbitrators as being too broad. The old alternate wordings were until recently included in hatted sections, but I removed them earlier today to clean up the decision. People who are being topic banned will be banned under the scope that receives the most support—this is currently "Any editor subject to a topic-ban in this decision is indefinitely prohibited from making any edit about, and from editing any page relating to, (a) Gamergate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed. These restrictions may be appealed to the Committee only after 12 months have elapsed from the closing of this case." GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The earlier idea was to ban people from any edits about gender and sexuality broadly construed, which was impossibly broad. The direct sanctions imposed in this case are more limited, and also easier to enforce. The direct bans in this case do not ban anyone from editing BLPs of women merely because they are women, only if they are related to GamerGate or gender-related disputes. There are, however, a combination of discretionary sanctions at play for admin intervention in issues, including, if necessary, bans from editing any biographical content about women; this would be accomplished not under this case, but under WP:NEWBLPBAN; this case allows banning from any participating in gender-related disputes. There is some significant overlap with NEWBLPBAN, the Sexology DS authorization, and this one, but all allow somewhat different topics to be sanctioned, though there are definite intersections between them. Courcelles 22:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare and Courcelles: thank you for the replies. Would it not make sense to ban editors now from writing about women and women's issues if they've made problematic edits about them before? Otherwise the same behaviour moves to (or continues in) another area.

I think the complexity of discretionary sanctions needs to be addressed at some point, because admins hardly know what they're allowed to do. This speaks to Tony Sidaway's point about admins needing to be "coaxed out of their inappropriate and destructive timidity." I recall one case, I believe related to Gamergate, where an admin wasn't able to take action to protect a BLP because he hadn't warned the person that BLPs fall under discretionary sanctions. Before DS were introduced for BLPs, admins were given wide latitude to protect BLPs. I wonder whether something has been lost in the bureaucracy. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 23:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

A protection as a DS does not require advanced warning at all, and that wide latitude is still in effect just under a different name, and now requires logging. And, yes, I agree the new system is significantly harder to use than the pre-2014 system was. It really should be simpler, and instead it got twice as hard. I'm really not certain broader topic-bans now would be necessary, at least not for all parties who are currently set to be topic banned under the standard formula. Given that NEWBLPBAN is explicitly mentioned in the decision, though, all parties should be considered advised of it, as much as they are of these DS (which surely will soon be called WP:ARBGG or something catchy). Courcelles 00:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I expressed the example poorly. I meant that the admin wasn't able to take action against the editor (I forget whether it was a topic ban or block) in the interests of protecting a BLP subject, because a DS warning hadn't been given. I have to go offline in a minute, but I will try to write later, perhaps elsewhere, about the BLP DS and whether they need to be simplified. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Clerk comment about the process. It was a topic ban. There is nothing stopping a normal block or page protection or deletion being placed without a prior discretionary sanctions alert (aka notification). An alert is required however to impose sanctions which admins can't ordinarily impose (bans and blocks & protections which can't be reversed absent a consensus). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Callanec: thank you. I've been reading through the DS pages, and at first glance there seem to be contradictions between those and policy. But I read through them quickly, so I'll have to spend more time on it before explaining further.

@The Devil's Advocate: thanks for your reply. Just to be clear, when I talked about topic-banning editors from writing about women and women's issues, I didn't have you in mind. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 16:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Technically one could say that there are contradictions between DS and policy, in that under DS administrators may do things which, under "traditional" policy, they would not be allowed to do (for instance, impose a topic ban or a revert restriction) and because, unlike under "traditional" policy, an administrator may not modify the sanctions imposed by someone else in the absence of a. the imposing administrator's consent, b. a consensus of uninvolved administrators or editors or c. arbcom's consent. This is a consequence of the fact that DS are supposed to help curb disruption in a given topic area more efficiently and more rapidly.

In a nutshell, under discretionary sanctions, administrators are given more power to deal with disruption: they may impose article-level restriction (for instance, a revert restriction on a single article or a group of articles) or restrictions on editors who, despite having been informed of the existence of discretionary sanctions, have continued to misconduct themselves. These are, I'd say, the most important things to know. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Emarkcd

If I've understood @Roger Davies: comment here about "often repeated allegations of conspiracies by shadowy bogeymen," he is saying the claims about off-site campaigns harassing Wiki editors and organized disruption of the article is just a conspiracy theory.

It was my understanding that a large quantity of evidence of this harassment had been submitted privately (due to its sensitive nature) to the committee. The evidence seems overwhelming so it is surprising it would be called a conspiracy.

Does the committee need further evidence of off-site campaigns of harassment and disruption? Perhaps a Finding of Fact is called for here so that committee members who might disagree with the weight of that evidence cannot unilaterally label it a conspiracy if the consensus is that this happened.

This would also be an important step addressing many of the critics of this proposal. To most onlookers, it is bizarre to see the myopic focus on some hostile behavior without even acknowledging the serious and sustained abuses that generated the hostility. It might be no excuse for hostility, but Wikipedia would benefit by making it clear such disruption is unwelcome. Emarkcd (talk) 02:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

No, Emarkcd, that's not really the point I'm making. What I'm saying here is that internal discussions simply become toxic if one accuses those with whom one is in disagreement of being enablers or endorsers of death threats, swatting and so on. And even if the Committee were in a position to introduce emergency draconian measures (which it isn't), it could only be on the basis of what's happening within the encyclopedia rather what may be going on outside it. There are simply no practical solutions to some of these issues because Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It would take major systemic change (end pseudonymous editing, require ID to create an account etc) to make individual editors accountable and, even then, we'd have no reliable means of connecting external anonymous individuals to named internal accounts.

For what it's worth, we have all been through the 40 or so emails submitted as evidence very carefully, and harassment is hardly mentioned. Some doxing has taken place but there are several sites/blogs, unconnected to Gamergate, who have been doxing - and driving away - Wikipedians for years. Yes, it's horrible and invasive but because of the anonymity of the internet provides there is little that can be done other than remove internal links to it. If you'd like to kick start a RFC to seek solutions, I'd happily participate.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. If there were accusations of enabling death threats and swatting because of disagreement then that was wrong. While there is no way Wikipedia could directly impact off-site organizing, it does have control over how its own platform is abused. Acknowledging the abuse that happened is a key step.

There was an organized effort of BLP violations and disruption. For a period, admin reaction was slow or inadequate for the volume of disruption. Leaving the task of enforcing WP policies to the small number of willing editors is what opened them up to off-site harassment and is a major reason they're "warring," "involved," and "owning" the page. No one else would touch it. Perhaps a solution is a new policy allowing or a renewed commitment to promising better administrator intervention during disruptions on this scale. The chilling refusal to admit any problem will leave even fewer editors willing to touch such problems, which aggravates these issues.

Resolving to consult an expert (which I'm certainly not) about this online abuse would have been another great option. I may not know the solution, but I know the site can do better. Worse than any neutrality or hostility concerns, the treatment of the living persons whose bios were maliciously vandalized and the harassment aimed at editors and eventually arbiters has been shameful. Emarkcd (talk) 07:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Emarkcd I entirely agree that some of our policies are not fit for purpose. They are full of obscure exemptions and complex nuances. We can trundle along with them under ordinary circumstances but they creak and groan when tested. If there's a lesson here, it's that the community needs to overhaul the whole area and probably address some of the reasons why admins often feel disempowered to respond. ArbCom has no mandate to do this. When the dust settles ....  Roger Davies ^talk 17:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sookenon

I wonder what measures are being put in place to prevent further off-site disruption and targeting of editors, as well as admins (and apparently, and perhaps unsurprisingly, even arbitrators as well) both on and off-wiki? Because so far with this case, I'm not exactly seeing it, outside of the SPA remedy.

What are you going to do to prevent more of these "operations" or "ops" or whatever from having having a further effect?

I'm not seeing anything that would prevent another "5 Horsemen" and their so-called "colluders" from being dragged in front of ArbCom a few months from now, and yet another "5 Horsemen" and their "colluders" a few months after the disruptors get done with them.

It's also gotten to the point that basically no admin can even safely unprotect the primary article because everyone knows what will be the (constant) end result.

Worse, it's gotten so bad that this whole mess has even begun drifting to other articles.

This mess will happen again. This will keep repeating itself.

What's going to be done to truly put a full, complete stop to this? Are tools or mechanisms being put in place to prevent this specifically?--Sookenon (talk) 13:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

We have summarised the power granted to uninvolved administrators by our decision and by policy in remedy 1.2, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed decision#Sanctions available, and also encouraged administrators to be proactive in enforcing Wikipedia's policies, especially BLP. That's all we can do as a committee, unfortunately. In our capacity as administrators, we can get involved in monitoring the various articles, although this will prevent us from hearing appeals and clarification/amendment requests as arbitrators.

What outside observers may not know is that the Arbitration Policy, WP:ARBPOL, imposes serious limits on what we may legitimately do, especially by preventing us from creating new policy. If the community thinks that administrators or concerned editors should be given more powers, they are extremely welcome to change Wikipedia's policies, because they are the only ones entitled to do it. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Kaciemonster

"Trying to stamp down on these internal disagreements by saying "you're either with us, or against us" (or as you put it "there are wikipedians and there are those who wish to use wikipedia to slander living people") simply makes these disagreements more toxic and more difficult to resolve because they don't address what the internal disputes are about."

@Roger Davies: seriously? The dispute, literally, is people organizing off-site and coming to Wikipedia from off-site to slander living people in Wikipedia articles. That's a straight description of the conflict that's happening now. At this point, it should be abundantly clear to you and the other arbs that what the community was looking for in this case was a way to help us deal with the constant influx of new editors that are trying to push a specific, unsupported point of view on Gamergate-related articles. No amount of trying to justify your decisions by saying "this is what the dispute is actually about" or "there's nothing we can really do" is going to empower editors to edit in the topic area when the potential consequences they face are dealing with a constant stream of battle-ready SPAs and an Arbitration Committee that says "you should be happy that the editors trying to protect these topics are only getting topic banned and not sitebanned." Nobody cares if there's "nothing you can do" offsite, but your solution to the problem onsite is to topic ban editors who are trying to protect this project and, as a result, are making themselves vulnerable to constant on and off site attacks. Is that really the message you want to send to editors? Kaciemonster (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Kaciemonster For as long as I can remember partisans have been turning up on Wikipedia to skew BLPs in one direction or another as part of an agenda. It's a systemic problem on an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Also for as long as I can remember, new people have been turning up on Wikipedia after reading about an issue that strikes a chord in the media. We can't stop them coming and there's no reason why we should as most of them will not have an agenda but simply be curious. So, either we need a magic filter that lets the good guys and keeps the bad guys out or we let admins do the filtering. One thing is certain, we need to find ways to de-escalate the dispute.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by MicBenSte

Ignoring the media campaign (which is annoying to say the least and once again frames the issue one-sided) I checked the reasonings. Some made me wonder, but I cannot really disagree with the decisions of ArbCom. At first I did have the impression ArbCom folded for pressure to punish LoganMac, but since then I've revoked that opinion - it was just an oversight in the mass of things to be considered. I also wish to note that a lot of issues re WP:BLP have existed, and not only Quinn's and Sarkeesian's - also e.g. Sommer's and Brennan's articles have been vandalised if I recall correctly. Calling foul play should go both ways. As for the rest - I address *some* points left in my replies to Sandstein and Jayen466.

@Sandstein: No offense Sandstein, but this would be a -bad- idea. The media has shown an side which focused on one aspect (and in several cases misattributed things) and made it larger then it was - and only focused on one side. Horrible stuff has happened from both sides (and most from third parties likely) - doxxing, targeted harassment campaigns, etc - and as of current, bowing for the press would only make it worse. The press is as much involved as this as the 'involved parties'. While I am personally pro-GamerGate when it comes to the original (and still standing) goals of weeding out the corruption, I've also always recognized there are fringe elements who use the GamerGate tag who are doing those things. (Which is exactly the problem with an movement over the Internet without an central organization) Personally I've mailed in a calm manner several newspapers with information about who and what (including the nastiness from both sides), after which newspapers either completely pulled the article or rewrote it to be more accurate. It mostly is that when the chief redactors get to know what is wrong, they *can* be willing to review an article - but that can be a lengthy procedure, and often it even doesn't get spotted.

@Jayen466: Really? The first half of your links are bullshit links anyway (mails from the Guardian were leaked where the female tech lead journalist wanted to frame, Gawker is a known party to facilitate radical feminist sites and is a party in GamerGate, similar to Pando and The Mary Sue, and the Volkskrant and Der Standard are left-wing newspapers here in Europa who have given room to radical feminists before and are known to produce lies from time to time). As for 'significant traction', where? Not that much in Europe.... As for Brad, I have a comment on his reasonings which I won't post here considering the risk of a block or other punishment. Let's say the least I've got the impression of CoI of him. MicBenSte (talk) 21:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Risker

I hope that the Arbitration Committee recognizes that it has now put most of the biology and zoology articles, not to mention large swathes of the medical articles, on discretionary sanctions, even though such articles have never been mentioned in any way in this arbitration request. Risker (talk) 21:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see that at all, Risker. "Gender-related dispute or controversy" isn't that broad--Guerillero | My Talk 22:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's mostly because you've not bothered to define "gender". However, gender-specific behaviour is mentioned on just about every zoology article, it is strongly related to all kinds of biology articles, and a very significant number of medical articles discuss gender and sexuality. You really have no need to include gender in the decision at all; every last one of the issues related to "gender" that arose in this case was covered by the BLP policy and existing special provisions. Every one of them.

Having taken the time to read through a goodly chunk of the relevant articles and talk pages and other arcana, it strikes me that this case most closely parallels the Scientology decisions, because of the extreme level of highly organized external effort to "spin" the articles. If one looks back (I know it's ancient history, and few of the current arbitrators will be familiar with the case), the multiple editors with a single voice principle would have been very applicable to this case, and I am very surprised that it was not invoked. Risker (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Guettarda

Overall, I get the decision. I've seen dozens of cases like this, this is what the arbcomm does. If you're in the centre of things, it's awful. If you have a little more distance, it doesn't look so bad - run of the mill "a pox on both your houses". Somehow or other, this tends to work. A few people are made examples of and move on. Other people, exhausted by the arbcomm process and how little it yielded, are jaded. A few old editors stick with it, a few new ones show up, and before you know it, the articles are decent, if somewhat pedestrian.

The problem is that this case feels different. As Ryulong pointed out, the volume of throw-away accounts that can be used here is pretty mind-boggling. The stories (which I haven't followed up on) of offsite harassment are enough to give anyone pause. In the end, the question remains: why would people want to clean up the articles? What support is there for people who choose to throw caution of the wind and actually remove BLP violations and block offenders? Sure, it's outside of the arbcomm to craft remedies that address actions outside the English Wikipedia - even when they are imported from off-site. Limits of one's jurisdiction doesn't mean limits to one's imagination. Go out and recruit admins who might be willing to act swiftly to deal with BLP violations and DE. Something to make the next person who gets involved in trying to keep peace feel like they aren't sticking their necks out quite so far. Guettarda (talk) 06:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by The Legend of Miyamoto

Let me just say that I have always disapproved of the arbitration decision since it seems to value "playing nice" over an angry mob of editors outright trampling over Wikipedia policy to poison the well against its targets. I felt like I needed to speak up now because I take particular umbrage with Roger Davies' argument against NorthBySouthBaranof:

"While I understand where the opposers are coming from, this is not any ordinary topic. In NBSB, we have a prolific editor who has made about 500 edits to the Gamergate controversy article, and over 2300 (yes, 2300) more to its talk page. They have also made around 700 edits to this case. This is evidence of deep investment. Simply put, it is difficult to imagine how a person can be part of the problem one day, and part of the solution the next. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine that such a determined editor can met their editing opponent half-way to resolve an editing dispute. Our role is to get the article back to normal as rapidly as possible and we will not do that by handing it back to the poor admins having failed to pass an obvious remedy."

Roger Davies is arguing based on a correlation/causation fallacy, only accounting for the quantity rather than the quality of the edits. Like many, many users have already stated, Gamergate has been deliberately brigading the page in order to slant it in its favour. How do you propose you deal with users constantly adding POV statements and unreliable sources without vigilantly watching and editing the page? Punishing any prolific watchdog editor will not bring the page back to normal, but will cause the pace of bad faith edits to exceed the edits needed to protect the page. I fail to see how the arbitration committee intends to prevent POV pushers from distorting the page, and I am highly disappointed that this flawed argument caused arbcom to flip their decision against NorthBySouthBaranof. The Legend of Miyamoto (talk) 08:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {username}

Editors may make relevant statements addressing general aspects of the proposed decision (which are not related to proposal).

Statement by the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee has published a statement on the GamerGate case.

For Wikipedia to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, it is essential that the editing experience is civil. Wikipedia is a reference work, not a battlefield. In recent months, the atmosphere surrounding the Gamergate controversy article on the English Wikipedia has resembled the latter. This atmosphere has been disruptive to the experience for editors and was damaging to the English Wikipedia project as a whole. The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee accepted a case on user conduct in the Gamergate controversy article and related articles, including biographies of those related to the topic.

Our preliminary decision found that many contributors were in violation of English Wikipedia policies on user conduct. The proposed decision imposes broad sanctions against a wide range of individuals, however this decision is subject to change, and proposed sanctions have not taken effect. These sanctions are intended to allow the restoration of normal editing processes to the topic area and facilitate constructive contributions. Our investigation and findings do not pass judgement on the content or quality of the articles in question.

About the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee deals with editor conduct on the English Wikipedia. Its members are volunteer editors elected by the Wikipedia community. The role of the Committee is to restore normal, amicable editing processes when those processes have been disrupted by disputes. It does so through hearing cases and issuing rulings, and when appropriate, removing disruptive parties.

The mandate of the Arbitration Committee extends only to editor conduct. Wikipedia policies prohibit the Committee from making editorial decisions about article content. When deciding cases, the Committee does not rule on the content of articles, or make judgements on the personal views of parties to the case. Although sometimes described as Wikipedia’s Supreme Court by the press, the Committee applies Wikipedia policies and guidelines rather than legal principles.

Preliminary findings regarding the GamerGate case under consideration

The Arbitration Committee is in the process of hearing a case on the conduct and interactions between editors contributing to the Gamergate controversy article and related pages. The Committee agreed to hear the case to examine user conduct and to attempt to reduce the level of disruption around the topic on Wikipedia. There have been a number of articles about this case in the press of late, some of which mischaracterise the Committee, its process, and outcomes of this case. We would like to clarify the Committee’s purpose, process, and preliminary findings. The two primary issues in the case at hand are the behaviour of editors as they have engaged in the development of the Gamergate controversy article, and the application of the Wikipedia policy of neutral point of view.

Status of the decision

Last Monday (19 January 2015), a subset of Committee members posted a proposed decision on the case. This proposal was not a final decision.

For each case it hears, the Arbitration Committee selects drafting arbitrators: several members of the Committee who, often with input from the rest of the Committee, review the evidence presented and offer preliminary findings. Once the proposed decision has been posted, other Committee members are invited to add additional findings and remedies, and edit existing ones. The proposal may be reworked or revised, and new measures may be voted on. If there is a consensus among committee members, the preliminary decision may be restructured entirely.

Sanctions in the proposed decision do not take effect until the Arbitration Committee votes to close the case, at which point the passing principles, findings, and remedies are posted in the final decision section. Contrary to what has been reported, the Arbitration Committee frequently hears and approves appeals of sanctions and other remedies when they are found to no longer be necessary.

Findings on editor conduct

From the creation of the Gamergate controversy article, many Wikipedia editors have held differing views about how the controversy should best be represented. These discussions grew increasingly heated, and certain editors were identified for potentially violating established English Wikipedia conduct policies, as defined by the broader editor community. The Arbitration Committee agreed to hear the case to attempt to reduce the level of disruption in the topic.

The Committee’s preliminary findings have been represented in some media stories as targeting feminist editors and attempting to prevent their contributions to gender-related topics. This is inaccurate. The findings of the Arbitration Committee deal exclusively with the documented conduct of editors on the English Wikipedia. They do not consider editor opinion, identity, affiliation, or beliefs, nor do they take into consideration an editor’s actions or affiliations outside of their participation on English Wikipedia, unless those actions are directly related to facilitating disruption on the encyclopedia. The Arbitration Committee does not and cannot take a stance on the content of articles, nor on broader issues such as the Gamergate controversy itself.

An accurate characterization of the Arbitration Committee’s preliminary decision is as follows. The Committee found that editors on various sides of the discussion violated community policies and guidelines on conduct. The Committee’s preliminary decision currently includes broad recommendations for, and endorsements of, community sanctions and topic bans for editors on various sides of the dispute. These include:

• 11 topic bans applied to editors on various sides of the dispute,
• an endorsement of 40 or so existing community sanctions on combative parties on various sides,
• roughly 100 community warnings/notifications,
• an extension of all community topic bans and restrictions from editing articles related to the Gamergate controversy article to include restriction from participation in any gender-related dispute, for editors on various sides, and
• the introduction of discretionary sanctions for any gender-related dispute, which can be imposed by any uninvolved administrator when useful for stabilising a topic, empowering the community to deal with disruption quickly.

The current majorities on the proposed decision are not in favour of banning any editors from Wikipedia.

Neutral point of view

The Arbitration Committee does not address the content of Wikipedia articles. As such, the preliminary decision by the Committee is not a referendum on the content, perspective, or neutrality of the Gamergate controversy article. The Committee does not endorse or censure the content in the article in question.

However, the Committee understands that the editor conduct issues under review are related to efforts by those with conflicting opinions of the topics relating to the Gamergate controversy article to influence the content of related Wikipedia articles. The English Wikipedia has robust policies and guidelines designed to address precisely such situations. The preliminary findings of the Committee reiterate the existence and importance of these existing policies and guidelines, and invite the participation of neutral editors and administrators in the maintenance and development of the articles in question.

These include:

• a reminder to editors about existing provisions of the English Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons, for the purpose of addressing "drive-by" abuse,
• an invitation for neutral editors to participate in the topic,
• an invitation for uninvolved administrators to participate in dispute resolution, and
• a reminder for administrators on appropriate actions pertaining to biographies of living persons.

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Please direct press enquiries about this case to the Arbitration Committee via email. For the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that hosts and supports the projects of the Wikimedia movement, see their press room.

For the Arbitration Committee, LFaraone 03:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

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