Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Venezuelan politics/Evidence

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Target dates: Opened 6 April 2024 • Evidence closes 20 April 2024 • Workshop closes 27 April 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 4 May 2024

Scope: Conduct in the topic area of Venezuelan politics, with a specific focus on named parties.

Case clerks: ToBeFree (Talk) & Dreamy Jazz (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Firefly (Talk) & Guerillero (Talk) & Sdrqaz (Talk)

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

Submitting evidence

• Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
• You must submit evidence in your own section, using the prescribed format.
• Editors who change other users' evidence may be sanctioned by arbitrators or clerks without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the arbitration clerks by e-mail or on the talk page.

Word and diff limits

• The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee.
• If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page.
• Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Supporting assertions with evidence

• Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
• Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

Rebuttals

• The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page.
• Analysis of evidence should occur on the /Workshop page, which is open for comment by parties, arbitrators, and others.

Expected standards of behavior

• You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
• Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
• Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
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• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Evidence presented by David Tornheim

I believe the most significant problem has been resolved with the closing of this AN/I thread. I believe that will significantly help the situation--as it did the last time the editor was sanctioned, as I explained at the thread. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Regarding S. Marshall's contention that the AN/I was unfairly closed because NoonIcarus's (fka Jamez42) "defenders" were late, I believe these defenders side with NoonIcarus primarily because they agree with his editing that is more reflective of U.S. State Department propaganda disseminated through Western mainstream media[2] than is truly WP:NPOV--when one considers academic scholarship and world opinion.

Quite a few editors mentioned the POV problem at the AN/I. It's my understanding that ArbCom does not handle content disputes. If so, S Marhall's argument for appealing the AN/I appears to be in the wrong venue.

This is not just about failed verification tags. It's primarily about how NoonIcarus games the system with reverts, block deletions, and failed verification tags to eliminate views he does not like rather than work collaboratively to build an encyclopedia that is WP:NPOV:

WMRapids has tried to include academic quality information only to be immediately reverted by NoonIcarus without discussion on the talk page. This kind of behavior by NoonIcarus is nothing new and sanctioning made no difference.

--David Tornheim (talk) 13:59, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Evidence presented by S Marshall

The FV diffs

Evidence:

• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (which I collectively call "the FV diffs", because in all of these NoonIcarus added {{failed verification}} or removed information he thought was uncited)
• 9

Narrative: This is a content dispute that's become a conduct dispute. Of WMrapids and NoonIcarus, I think NoonIcarus' conduct was the worse, and on the issues at the 2024 AN/I Callanecc closed ("the AN/I"), I mostly side with WMrapids. But.

NoonIcarus is topic-banned because that was the consensus at the AN/I. Callanecc's close followed the consensus, so I don't fault Callanecc, but the outcome was extreme and unreflective of the diffs.

In the FV diffs, NoonIcarus added {{failed verification}}, or removed, information backed by citations that didn't directly verify the disputed content. WMrapids meant them to verify the disputed content and, with some investigation work, it was possible to find the correct information. In fairness to WMrapids, WMrapids has learned a lot about how to cite sources since he added these.

Few of the disputed citations met the standard in core content policy ("All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material.") In some cases this was due to technical errors in formatting (diff #9), and in others the source's wording had arguably been stretched. By this I don't necessarily mean that I think it had been stretched. I mean that NoonIcarus thought it had and I feel his case was arguable.

Strictly speaking {{failed verification}} was the wrong template. NoonIcarus should have used {{verify source}}. NoonIcarus has learned a lot about how to challenge poorly cited sources since he did this. I've also personally learned more from reading that discussion, and a sysop has since updated the documentation for {{failed verification}} to make it clearer.

The AN/I was largely a consensus of involved editors. This was the ~dozenth time the matter had come before the community (Vanamonde93's preliminary statement), and this time around, NoonIcarus' usual defenders SandyGeorgia and Bobfrombrockley arrived late for various reasons and couldn't participate fully (their preliminary statements). Taking the dozen discussions as a whole, the AN/I was an outlier that occurred because NoonIcarus' defenders were late.

Arbitrators, ask yourselves: if we keep on repeating the same discussion until one side gets there late, what happens?

Should you accept the AN/I as a true reflection of what the community thinks? Could there be circumstances where Arbcom overrules AN/I?

If you think about those questions as I do, then I ask you to consider converting NoonIcarus' topic ban to a more nuanced sanction that tries to limit disruption but frees him to challenge poor citations in this topic area.

Evidence presented by NoonIcarus

Talk page sections related to the FV: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. --NoonIcarus (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: reverted (...) without discussion. False, see Talk:Caracazo#POV tag. --NoonIcarus (talk) 14:37, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.