Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment

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Amendment request: Infoboxes

Initiated by Francis Schonken (talk) at 21:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected
Infoboxes arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Remedy 3.2 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Gerda Arendt restricted
List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
  • Gerda Arendt (diff of notification of this thread on Username2's talk page)
Information about amendment request
  • Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Gerda Arendt restricted
    • "Gerda Arendt is indefinitely restricted from: adding or deleting infoboxes; restoring an infobox that has been deleted... They may ... include infoboxes in new articles which they create." doesn't work very well. It leads to illogical split-offs, for the purpose of creation of infoboxes, with a lot of cleanup left to others. Let me take you step by step through an example:
      1. BWV 243 and BWV 243a used to be on a single page named Magnificat (Bach)
      2. (Gerda) preparing split [1] (moving existing Magnificat article to BWV 243)
      3. (Gerda) Starting BWV 243a article with infobox.
      4. (Gerda) in BWV 243a article adding a lot of content with references to sources that only speak about BWV 243.
      5. (Francis) cleaning up on BWV 243a [2] and moving BWV 243 related content to BWV 243 [3]
      6. (Gerda) speaking about "merg(ing) the (BWV 243 and BWV 243a) articles (back) to Magnificat (Bach), or separate the movements to a third (i.e. splitting one more off)" [4], suggesting she gets more recognition for her work that is now in the other article [5] while not wanting to contribute to that article [6]
      7. (Francis) obliging and working out the "partial inclusion" solution with updates of the content appearing in the BWV 243 article while technically only editing the BWV 243a article. [7] [8] - while this involved removing refs to sources not related to the BWV 243a article, putting up an {{original research}} template.
      8. Despite promises by Gerda [9] she has not found time to add references for the description in the BWV 243a article (which was well-referenced as long as it was in the BWV 243 article)

Statement by Francis Schonken

See step-by-step above:

  • A lot of unnecessary counterproductive work not tailored on the optimal path to improve the encyclopedia, but jumping through hoops (also by those not by far ever involved in the infobox case) in order to have an infobox without infringing the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case.
  • What I'd propose would more look like Talk:Rondo in C minor (Bruckner)#Survey on infobox or Talk:Magnificat in D major, BWV 243#Infobox on an article-by-article base, where once there is consensus on yes-or-no an infobox for the concerned article it doesn't matter who adds or removes it. Also, no longer a who created the article "owns" the infobox decision reasoning, which in the long run is only counterproductive.
  • So I'd move to replace the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case by "Gerda Arendt is indefinitely restricted from: adding or deleting infoboxes unless as a consequence of a clear talk page consensus; restoring an infobox that has been deleted unless as a consequence of a clear talk page consensus; or making more than two comments in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. They may participate in wider policy discussions regarding infoboxes with no restriction, and include infoboxes in new articles which they create."
  • Note that I have more examples of somewhat ill-advised splittings, with retrospect also probably only for the same reason of creating infoboxes on the splits, and not in the interest of better (or more even) quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. Above I rather chose to elaborate one example than bore you all with multiple examples of the same (I was thinking e.g. of the Missa (Bach) split-offs).
  • For Gerda I hope also if such improvement of her editing conditions were possible, she'd feel less restricted in editing for the wider benefit of the encyclopedia as a whole, not only for the articles on which she can leave a more prominent mark. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:51, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Replies by Francis
  • @Thryduulf: I'm largely indifferent on whether infoboxes are improvements to articles or not. But you did catch nicely what this is about:
    • current system is not in the best interest of the encyclopedia
    • requires a lot of work by others not in the least interested in infoboxes
    • the inherent ownership issues with the current situation are not tenable. There's no reproach to what happened in the infoboxes case: I think arbitrators did the best they could under the given circumstances. Just looking for a way to improve.
    • what I'm suggesting is neither a mitigation nor an expansion of the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case, only adjusting it so that it is more workable for uninvolved parties, and Wikipedia's content benefits from the adjustment.
  • Re. Thryduulf's procedural suggestions on determining consensus in the article-by-article scenario: I'd keep it as low profile as possible, with a WP:CCC attitude. From the two examples I gave above the first was rather high-brow (see WP:ANRFC#Talk:Rondo in C minor (Bruckner)#Survey on infobox), the second (Talk:Magnificat in D major, BWV 243#Infobox) not. Both work for me. If someone wants to re-open the discussion, they should feel free (without lifting the "two edits per infobox discussion" of remedy 3.2).
  • @Beeblebrox: as an initiator I ask an improvement of my situation. I ask an improvement for Wikipedia's overal quality situation. Whether Gerda likes it or not is not the main concern here. If the amendement would be implemented and after that Gerda would still not be interested in pulling two related articles (like BWV 243 and BWV 243a) to a comparable level of quality that's her loss, but at least some red tape for others who are interested in that would be lifted. See also my first reply to Thryduulf above.
  • @Gerda Arendt — I'm not interested in what plays there: liking the role of a victim? Stockholm syndrome? Seeking an anchor for periodically "proving" that Wikipedia is a bad system? Really, I'm not interested. The situation for Wikipedia is not optimal, and whether you, personally, are interested in optimization of the situation for Wikipedia, or not, should not play a role in the deliberation I'm suggesting.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 05:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "more diffs" suggestion by NativeForeigner

--Francis Schonken (talk) 06:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, thanks for looking at this. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Gerda's second reply
[10]

Not sure what Gerda tries to say... The over-all impression remains that she's not interested in seeing what benefits a streamlined "remedy 3.2" could bring her, the encyclopedia and myself. I'd rather like a situation where Gerda and I work together on BWV 243, than me doing a lot of unneccessary extra work, and then getting a compliment from Gerda for that at the end: I don't care very much for the compliment, but at least I seriously object to the unnecessary extra work: it is not in the best interest of the encyclopedia.

But as said, whether or not Gerda is only successful in looking at it from her own situation and/or from the situation of the encyclopedia as a whole, should be immaterial to the decision I'm petitioning here. So I'm really not sure what she's trying to prove.

Again I'm not interested in "why" Gerda apparently feels comfortable in a situation she describes as kafkaesque ("I came to love my restrictions, kafkaesque as they are" [11]). Neither the fact that she appears to feel comfortable in that situation, nor, even less, the "why" of that should have any influence on the outcome of this amendement proposal, imho. So I hope we can leave that part of the discussion behind. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:15, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Surely, if there's a clear talk page consensus, someone else who's not topic-banned could go about making the actual edit?"

Well, Gerda isn't topic-banned is she? Please see content of remedy 3.2. Gerda is not disallowed from the topic, not in mainspace, not in discussions, there's only a limited set of edits w.r.t. the topic she cannot do.

Its about creating the conditions that allow Gerda to edit in mainspace on the topic (in the current ruling: always on articles she created; never on other articles) that throw the complexities to deal with (also) on others. Apart from the splitting, merging, creating issues that others need to clean up,... (already discussed), and the initiatives on trying to find consensus on infoboxes I'm not interested in, which I undertook nonetheless as an extra task, there's still more work proposed... (and for something Gerda is very good in and I'm not). Then when I messed up on the infobox layout after Gerda has used up her two tokens to discuss it for that article a new unworkable situation is created...

My proposal is about creating more workable conditions for all, maintaining the partial topic ban idea of remedy 3.2, but with less difficult to manage side-effects. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Leave it alone or lift Gerda's sanctions altogether" line of arguments

Really, not helping. People still enclosed in their own arguments at the time of the ArbCom case are not likely to see the wider benefit of the amendment I propose. I kindly ask ArbCom members to put such arguments aside and give no attention to them. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "You think Gerda creates aticles ONLY to add an infobox?"

Yes, that is a fact. Gerda does. Nikkimaria does (with the sole objective to avoid the infobox). There's no secret about that, both are clear on their motives in that respect. Others get caught in the fire. I'm thinking for instance about a nemcomer like Meneerke Bloem here, clueless about what is going on (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 52#Please arbitrate). All of this is very counterproductive, and makes Wikipedia an unwelcoming place for newcomers. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, misjudged that one apparently, Gerda prefers the sanctimonious approach now. Gerda created BWV 243a (which is the history of BWV 243, there is no "difference in history"), and apart from adding the infobox:
  • Gerda added history to the BWV 243a article, which is the history of BWV 243 too;
  • Gerda added an elaborate description of the work to the BWV 243a article, which happened to be a description of BWV 243, not of BWV 243a (she didn't even have/use a source on 243a for writing that description: the minor differences in orchestration etc were overrun and the description was written as if BWV 243a was the same as BWV 243 in that respect)
Gerda did not collaborate on descriptions specific for BWV 243a, e.g. Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a#The four Christmas hymns
The publication history section Gerda created for BWV 243a was incorrect for that article: it was the publication history of BWV 243. It incorrectly listed publications that were only applicable to BWV 243 [12]
Gerda suggested to merge the two articles back again after that, which is not what she says now.
Gerda refused to collaborate on the BWV 243 article after I had moved the BWV 243 description there from the BWV 243a article, reason for that refusal explicitly stated by Gerda: because BWV 243 had no infobox.
So really the creation of BWV 243a was only about the infobox, all the other content Gerda contributed on Bach's Magnificat could as well, or even better, have been placed in the BWV 243 (or the pre-split) article. And about an undercurrent of ownership which was somewhat cemented by the current wording of the 3.2 remedy of the infoboxes case. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is not about "making errors". Everyone does. This is about an environment that creates less error-prone and "leave the cleanup to others" conditions. These others are volunteers too, and the cleanup they do is out of free will too. It is about creating conditions that reduce the surplus work for all involved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You see, I got myself involved in this very time-consuming amendment request, still I believe that when it passes the amount of time gained later in avoiding unneccessary cleanup situations will be more than a marginal net benefit, and not only for myself. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the effectiveness of the proposed amendment

Although, theoretically, "consensus" is impossible (as RexxS argues), the article-by-article treatment (without prior rights for the creator of the article), as proposed by the amendment, shows little practical problems to reach an agreement for the articles where this approach has been tested:

No turmoil or drama, just editors coming to an agreement on the best solution for the article in question. So yes, the proposed amendment would be effective in solving problems. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gerda

I think this is a waste of time. I came to love my restrictions, kafkaesque as they are, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In 2011, I wrote He was despised, because Messiah (Handel), then up for FA, had no room for the music. I wrote four supporting articles, including Messiah Part II. They have infoboxes, the main article not. Mind the dates, Messiah was TFA on 23 March 2013. - In a similar way, I worked on other composition articles, compare Mass in B minor to Mass in B minor structure, most recently Bach's Magnificat, the only difference being that the article on the music was not called Magnificat structure. I am rather proud of BWV 243a already (going to be improved) and happy that BWV 243 was improved as well (mostly by you, Francis, the way to include the details in both articles is admirable, and I didn't know it), - this was the starting point. - I am on vacation. Don't expect anything from me until November. I feel that I have to improve the Bach cantatas for Reformation date in my limited time. One has an infobox (BWV 48), two not (BWV 5, BWV 56), because although I wrote most of their content but didn't start them. I don't know what our readers think. - Victim? The victim of the infoboxes case was Andy, not me, but yes, you typically find me defending the victim (17 June 2013). If you all can improve the situation without me, that would be wonderful ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't create articles to have an infobox, I create articles to inform readers. Normally, I do that in place, look at Locus iste (compare the start and today). For the Bach Magnificat, the two versions have different history, key, scoring and recordings, therefore (!) I started a different one, and still believe that two separate articles are better than one, but if others disagree, they could be merged to one Magnificat (Bach). All this is content, nothing for arbcom. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BWV 243a is a work in progress, and I make errors, sorry. The Christmas elements are planned for Christmas, the sourcing of the structure for next week, unless someone steps in to add sooner. This is a project based on voluntary effort, right? - To see the term "comfortable" applied to a kakfaesque situation is quite amusing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Should I have marked "love" above with a sarcasm icon? - Last, a bit of article history. I came across Bach's Magnificat when I wrote about Rutter's, wanted to compare to Bach's treatment, and found there was nothing to compare, and some of the little bit about Bach's Meisterwerk was wrong. I fixed what was wrong and started the new one, planned to be TFA on 2 July 1717. I am going to sing Rutter's today. Magnificat! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Singing was great. A bit more of history: BWV 120 was created in 2010 to cover all articles with the general number, also BWV 120a and BWV 120b which were redirects then. Nikkimaria split them to individual articles, which I think was a good idea! (There are several more of the kind.) Francis made individuals articles BWV 233 to BWV 236 back to redirects today which I think is not a good idea. Every BWV number deserves its own article even if that is a stub first, and BWV 233 wasn't even a stub. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Having to add Missa, BWV 232a, which is certainly no stub, but was also redirected. I reverted that one, will leave the others for, I have better things to do on a Sunday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf

It was prophesied that the way the Committee handled the infoboxes case would just lead to it coming back here in some other form sooner or later. I've lost count of how many times now it has done, and each time the Committee has refused to do the necessary nettle-grasping to sort out the mess they've left the topic in, particularly regarding the endorsed (and arguably required) WP:OWNERSHIP and the battleground it produces.

On this occasion @Beeblebrox: has missed the point of the request. This is not about lifting Gerda's restrictions for her sake, it is about amending Gerda's restrictions to avoid disrupting the encyclopaedia. I have not looked at the evidence presented, but if the allegations are correct then Gerda has found a way to remain within her restrictions while adding infoboxes to existing articles (which is a long-term benefit to the encyclopaedia) she did not create (which is against he restrictions). The method she has allegedly employed to do this disrupts Wikipedia in the short term (excessive necessary splitting/forking/duplication of content) and creates work for others to fix.

It is a perverse situation whereby someone must disrupt the project in order to improve it, but it is one entirely of Arbcom's own making. The suggested amendments to the restrictions would go part way to removing this disruption, but without also removing the ownership advantages of the anti-infobox users and making and enforcing a requirement that all such talk page discussions be:

  • Publicly and neutrally advertised (I forget which article now, but I did see an article where an infobox had been removed based on a discussion that was not-unlikely canvassed and closed after ~3 days by its initiator);
  • Be confined to discussing the specific infobox for the specific article; and
  • Closed by an uninvolved user

then there will just be more removals of infoboxes to the detriment of the encyclopaedia.

ArbCom made this mess and now it needs to clean it up. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Question by Resolute

I have no knowledge of this topic area, but BWV 243 and BWV 243a look like near copies of each other. It forces me to ask why these were split in the first place. On the surface, I can see no reason to do this other than to force an infobox into the new fork. Unless there is a good reason for this that I am not seeing, I am inclined to support Francis' position that a change to the restriction is needed, though I'm not sure the one he proposes would be of benefit. Resolute 15:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Montanabw

The articles themselves are created to allow expansion on a topic where the main topic cannot encompass all that detail. Clearly if they re short or have some repetitive material WP:DONOTDEMOLISH applies. Otherwise, if there is an issue with them being a POV fork, then a merge recommendation, or in an extreme case AfD, is the solution, not a run to this dramaboard crying that Gerda created an article. Really? You think Gerda creates aticles ONLY to add an infobox? Oh PUH-LEESE. Get a grip! Truly, ArbCom has far greater things to worry about than this. This whole thing is crap. Frankly, my opinion is that Gerda's restrictions on adding infoboxes should be lifted altogether, and the restrictions on edit-warring to add or remove should be made to apply to everyone. Montanabw(talk) 17:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RexxS

Surely it's obvious that the very problems ArbCom failed to solve last year will inevitably return, because their solution to the disruption caused by edit-warring over infoboxes was to ban one side of the argument - and nothing else. It's all very well writing platitudes about "clear consensus on the talk page", but frankly that's nonsense. There can be no consensus about the existence of an infobox in an article, because it's a binary decision: there's either a box or there isn't. That leaves no room for a compromise solution that everybody can live with - the very definition of consensus on Wikipedia. The current ArbCom sanctions are what is causing the forks of articles because we have Nikkimaria on the one hand creating stubby forks to ensure that they don't have infoboxes; and Gerda on the other hand doing the same to ensure that they do have infoboxes. I hope somebody on ArbCom can now understand that giving the decision to the creator of the article is a stupid idea that generates this sort of race to see who can think of the most forks.

Having said that, it's also clear that the forks are seeing development and allowing greater detailed exploration of the parent articles. This is a good thing, but we're arriving at it from quite the wrong direction. Isn't it simply crazy that a contributor of Gerda's quality feels that the restrictions have helped her create more content? How much more content could she now make if she wasn't in a race to become the creator of an article before someone else does? That sort of situation is anathema to the collaborative process on which we so strongly depend and it's your fault, ArbCom. Mackensen warned you at the time that taking sides in a content dispute was likely to end badly, but you went ahead anyway. Your problem, you sort it. --RexxS (talk) 21:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by olive

The arbitration decision on info boxes clearly delineated two groups and penalized one. I don't see how a fair consensus can be reached on any infobox discussion when there are clearly two sides and one of those sides has more implied power than the other. I felt strongly the arbs made mistakes on the infobox arbitration and seeing Gerda an incredibly productive and mild mannered editor dragged here and there by those with out sanctions, however well meaning, often in efforts to curtail her further only increases my unease with that decision. As said above, this is not a level playing field so why would we expect fair play. If we want fair play and the productive editing and discussion that brings lift the sanctions on Gerda and let her edit freely. If she doesn't want the sanctions lifted or has, and to her great credit, learned to operate productively with in them then let's leave her alone to do the job she's here for. This is again, time wasted.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Statement by (other user)

Clerk notes

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

Infoboxes: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • This is a perfect example of why we generally have very little interest in appeals by third parties. Gerda isn't interested in having the restrictions lifted, so I see no reason to discuss the matter at all. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll need to review more than the provided diffs to get a view of this. If this is the case as framed, it could be problematic. However, I'm not immediately seeing it. NativeForeigner Talk 05:31, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm just going through contribs, I want to get a more complete story than 'just diffs'. But thank you, nonetheless. NativeForeigner Talk 06:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This does seem needless complexity, but I'm not sure about the proposed change. Surely, if there's a clear talk page consensus, someone else who's not topic-banned could go about making the actual edit? Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification request: Pseudoscience

Initiated by Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) at 16:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Pseudoscience arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by Squeamish Ossifrage

My apologies in advance if I've botched the maze of templates involved with this process in any way.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience establishes standard discretionary sanctions as its final remedy. It has, shall we say, an interesting history of amendments. Its current form authorizes sanctions "for all articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted" (emphasis mine). Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions lists the areas to which discretionary sanctions currently apply, including "Pages relating to Pseudoscience and Fringe science" (emphasis mine); this wording is also used in the discretionary sanction alert template for the associated case.

It is my assumption that this is a distinction without a difference, and that the sanctions apply regardless of namespace. I inquired with Sandstein to ensure I was correct in my reading, as he appears to be among the more active arbitration enforcement administrators. He suggested that I refer the issue here for more explicit clarification. And so, I have.

Statement by Sandstein

The reason why I recommended that Squeamish Ossifrage ask here is that I'm not so sure that the answer is all that obvious. As Salvio giuliano writes, discretionary sanctions apply to all pages, not only articles, "unless clearly and unambiguously specified otherwise", but – it seems to me – that is precisely what the remedy in question does by specifying that sanctions apply to ""all articles relating to pseudoscience", underlining mine. If that is (as I suspect) not what the Committee intended, I recommend that the remedy and others like it are amended to read "for the topic of pseudoscience" or similar.  Sandstein  18:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Salvio giuliano's opinion in opposition to the proposed motion. The wording "authorized for pages related to ..." would exclude edits about the subject on pages that are not about the subject, such as noticeboards or list articles. This conflicts with the DS procedure which talks about "topics" or "topic areas", but would take precedence over it as a newer decision. The wording should be reconsidered.  Sandstein  21:04, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Thryduulf re motion

With the exception of the Falun Gong case, these are all simple clarifications that do not affect the scope of the remedies' intent and I struggle to think of any way they could be controversial.

The Falun Gong case is slightly different, in that it changes from affecting articles that are "closely related" to pages "related [...], broadly construed". I don't know if this broadening of the scope is either significant or relevant? There are no recent sanctions listed on the case page, but that's the extent of my knowledge of the current state of the topic area. The change is probably immaterial but arbs should be aware that it is a change. Thryduulf (talk) 10:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

Changing (ex post facto) rulings by motion is a bad idea. There should be wider community input and and RFC about such matters.

Why? Because the Arbitration process is set up to at least have an appearance of inviting community input. Using motions to change the results subverts the community. Arguably amendment of one ruling through motions though this has always seemed a clunky and ill-conceived technique) where at least the motion is sufficiently similar to the amendment requested is reasonable. But essentially the use of motions outside a very limited scope in terms of the Arbitration Committee's power to make changes to purely procedural aspects of the arbitration process itself is ulta vires.

Moreover in this case the amendment request pertains to the "Pseudoscience" case, and, one assumes, that at least the parties to the case, and those under warnings within the last 12 months have been advised that an amendment has been tabled (or in American parlance, proposed). Those affected by the other eleven cases, which the motion proposed to change, have presumably not been notified, so no due process has been followed. (Again for American members, there are US laws relating to quasi-judicial processes, which may be relevant, no doubt NYB can advise.)

However if the committee is determined on this path, the phraseology of the motion might at least repay a little careful thought. For example do we really want to apply discretionary sanctions to a user over a page they are developing in their user-space? Might we, perhaps, wish to include the Pseudoscience ruling itself in the motion?

I refer the committee to the a previous example where the then committee instructed that administrators must place a "Arbitration sanctions" template on all talk pages of articles related to, I think it was, "Abortion, broadly construed", and only when I had scoped this task and reported on the enormity and non-necessity of it did they reword it to making the placing of the sanction notice optional. (They also had no business attempting to compel administrators to perform actions.) It is better, where possible to get these things right the first time.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:03, 22 October 2014 (UTC).

Clerk notes

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

Pseudoscience: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Your interpretation is correct. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Placing sanctions and page restrictions, the rules that are to be applied to determine whether an edit is covered by discretionary sanctions are the ones outlined in the topic ban policy, i.e. this section. As a result, unless clearly and unambiguously specified otherwise, [discretionary sanctions apply to] all pages (not only articles) broadly related to the topic, as well as the parts of other pages that are related to the topic. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:21, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sandstein, in my opinion, you're reading too much in what's but a bit of anachronistic wording. After all, while it's true that there really is no uniformity in the wording of the provisions authorising discretionary sanctions (which, going forward, is something we may want to fix), our intention is generally clear.

      Looking at previous cases, I see "standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all articles dealing with X", "pages related to the Y, broadly construed, are placed under discretionary sanctions" and "standard discretionary sanctions are authorised for any edit about, and for all pages relating to, Z"; however, I don't doubt that, irrespective of the different formulations, all these mean the same thing: all edits concerning X, Y and Z are subject to discretionary sanctions, regardless of namespace.

      Then again, we could pass a motion amending all provisions authorising DS to read "for all edits" rather than "all articles or pages", but, if I can be honest, this looks like a waste of time to me. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with Salvio. By "clearly and umambiguously specified otherwise", I'd expect some sort of phrase such as "but not in project space" or "for articles only". It's pretty clear to me that the discretionary sanctions extend outside of article space. I'm happy to support a motion, but I don't see that it's necessary. WormTT(talk) 12:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The intention was to cover everything related regardless of namespace. I think a motion to clarify this won't hurt. T. Canens (talk) 17:59, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd support a motion that would resolve the ambiguity here. AGK [•] 23:10, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would also support a simple motion correcting the language to be more clear. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:10, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Motion

This motion amends the wording of existing discretionary sanction remedies to make clear that they apply to all pages related to the topic, regardless of namespace.

1) The following remedies are amended by striking the word "articles" and inserting the word "pages" in its place:

2) Remedy 5 of the Monty Hall problem case is amended to read as follows:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the Monty Hall problem, broadly interpreted.

3) Remedy 10 of the Gibraltar case is amended to read as follows:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Gibraltar and its history, people, and political status, broadly interpreted.

4) Clause (b) of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Falun_Gong#Motions is amended to read as follows:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Falun Gong, broadly interpreted.

Any existing sanctions and restrictions remain in force and are not affected by this motion.

Support
  1. T. Canens (talk) 00:43, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. For the reasons discussed above. Thryduulf's observation is well-taken, but I don't see it as a problem. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:34, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:43, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I understand Salvio's concerns, but believe this clarifies it sufficiently. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I'm not convinced that "edits" is the right word at all, pages seems more appropriate to me. WormTT(talk) 08:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Agreed with Worm on the diction here. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 15:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I think it shouldn't be problematic. Thank you for the comment Thryduulf, I think that aspect would have escaped me had you not noted it. However, I think for our purposes it's almost immaterial. NativeForeigner Talk 05:32, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. The various provisions should be amended to read "edits" (and not only pages) instead of articles. Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Abstain
Comments by arbitrators

Amendment request: Privatemusings

Initiated by Ponjuseme (talk) at 23:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected
Privatemusings arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Principle Sockpuppetry
List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
  • Privatemusings (diff of notification of this thread on Privatemusings' talk page)
Information about amendment request
  • [13]
  • In the principle of sock-puppetry, I suggest that a complete prevention of alternate accounts from editing in "discussions internal to the project" is vague and outdated. This is due to a large portion of editing being taken out of the article namespace and into other places. As well, in regard to disclosed socks, this would prevent connected I request that this principle be amended to only prevent !voting in areas that are heavily influenced by !votes and unrelated to content/conduct issues, such at requests for adminship, requests for bureaucrat, ArbCom elections, policy debates, and others like that, as well as prevention of !voting in any way whatsoever where a main or a sock has already !voted, such as in RfCs, AfDs, and others. In regards to undisclosed socks, this would also entail a complete interaction ban between the sock and the main account, as well as a ban from the sock and the main account participating in any discussions together. This would not change any other requirements for alternate accounts.

Statement by Ponjuseme

In this case, Privatemusings made problematic BLP edits, and used multiple sockpuppets in order to influence discussions in which he was involved. The principle relating to sockpuppetry explicitly stated that "Sockpuppet accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project, such as policy debates."

  1. This is exceedingly vague, and could prevent anything from banal talk page discussions, to directly influencing RFAs about the sock puppeteer.
  1. Editing project pages is a vital part of Wikipedia, for example, take the case of a person who wants to edit Wikipedia, but already has an account directly linked with them. If they were to participate in any discussions based on content with that account, this may draw negative attention (such as if a devoutly religious person wanted to edit and take positions in areas that conflicts with their publicly professed religious beliefs, and would lead to them being ostracized if connected with their real life persona). In regards to asking why they couldn't just edit just the article space, this hypothetical person might sometimes want to comment on an RfC relating to an article they were editing, or join, for example, the WP:PORN project and discuss pornography related articles, in which that editing may not be highly regarded by that user's religious peers. They might also want to AfD certain topics relating to their religion that they don't feel are notable, but would be pressured otherwise to not AfD.
  1. This was a principle made in 2008, 6 years ago, when many things considered "internal to the project" we see today didn't exist or weren't considered in this principle. For example, the PROD process is in article space, but is it internal to the project even though it is visible to anyone looking at the page?

This is a specific, unambiguous case of a user who misused alternate accounts, and the principle made appears to be overly broad.

Statement by {other user}

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

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

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

Privatemusings: Arbitrator views and discussion

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