Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

Arbitration​Committee

A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

• Request a new arbitration case
• Request clarification or amendment of an existing case

  This includes requests to lift sanctions previously imposed

• Request enforcement of a remedy in an existing case
• Arbitrator motions

  Arbitrator-initiated motions, not specific to a current open request

Arbitration Committee proceedings

• recent changes
• purge this page
• view or discuss this template

Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

[edit]

Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Venezuelan politics	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	20 Apr 2024	04 May 2024

[edit]

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Conflict of interest management	13 Apr 2024
Mzajac	7 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing	none	(orig. case)	30 April 2024
Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 4	none	(orig. case)	8 May 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Current requests

Chuck Marean - Gwernol

Initiated by Chuck Marean at 19:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Chuck Marean (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiating party)
• Gwernol (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• On Chuck Marean’s talk page.[1]
• On Gwernol’s talk page.[2]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• On my (initiating party’s)talk page.[3]
• On Gwernol’s talk page. [4]
• On Request for Mediation.[5]

Statement by Chuck Marean

Gwernol was uncivil to me: rather than giving me writing advice or rewriting the piece[6], Gwernol accused me of bad writing [7][8], including by blocking me for a week[9] and then threatened to block me longer.[10] For that reason, Gwernol’s account shouldn’t be allowed to block. [11] -- Chuck Marean 19:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Gwernol

I respectfully ask the committee to decline this request. Chuck Marean has a long history of point of view pushing in articles. The block he is disputing resulted from this series of edits to Republican Party (United States): [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] and [17] which were reverted by multiple editors, including myself. These edits are clearly original research and are equally clearly designed to push Chuck's point of view of the Republican candidtes, as he acknowledges: "they are nuts" "telling my personal opinion" "I was trying to figure out who to vote for in the primary election... I thought it would be a good idea to share the results of my research" etc.

His approach to editing is, I think, well summarized by his own words here: "I also think politely expressing a point of view does not harm Wikipedia or its editors.". This is his second block for POV-pushing. Most of his edits to articles have been reverted or had to be significantly reworked due to a failure to comprehend and/or follow the basic policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. I won't bore the committee with a full recitation of them - his contributions, going back nearly two years, speak for themselves.

The block was preceded by appropriate warnings and his unblock request was declined by Trusilver. The validity of the block was confirmed by admins Mangojuice ZimZalaBim and editor Oniononion. Despite these multiple attempts to help Chuck understand NPOV by myself and other editors, he continues to insist that I am removing his comments to "support (my) own side in an editorial dispute" which I find an offensive mischaracterization of the situation and one entirely unfounded in reality.

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)

• Decline. The block was reviewed by multiple administrators and upheld on sufficient grounds. There is no evidence of misuse of administrator tools, much less of serious or repeated misuse that could warrant arbitration. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Decline. Chuck Marean was appropriately warned, and the unblock requests were properly heard. Even if that had not been the case, arbitration would have been inappropriate: it is the last step of dispute resolution. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Interchange Fee

Initiated by stymiee (talk) at 14:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• stymiee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• GBYehuda (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by {party 1}

There are two users who are engaged in a link spam and propaganda campaign in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee article. Biased information with no sources cited is repeatedly placed there despite its removal. They violate the 3 revert rule and then call others who undo their changes spammers. This article needs to be locked until a resolution is established.

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)

• Decline. Arbitration is the last step in our dispute resolution process, and prior avenues have not been exhausted. Pro-active assistance from uninvolved administrators or a mediator would be helpful here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Decline per Brad. Kirill 19:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Homeopathy

Initiated by Adam Cuerden ^talk at 11:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jim Butler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Peter morrell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Whig (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Arion 3x3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Orangemarlin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Docboat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Danaullman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

All have been notified on their talk pages, and a further notice was placed at Talk:Homeopathy, for anyone who would care to join.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Endless discussion, bringing other admins in... but really, the case is such that we need some guidance from on high.

Statement by Adam Cuerden

It is fairly widely accepted that Homeopathy is one of the major battlegrounds in Wikipedia, and has largely divided into two camps, with much hostility between them.

The purpose of this case would be to help sort out some of the perennial issues. What are the standards of evidence for medical studies (clarification of WP:RS. Perhaps the influential John Ioannidis study would make a useful starting point). Can we get some guidelines for how to balance weight between mainstream science and homeopathy? (WP:Undue weight How about balancing it in the lead? (WP:LEAD) What about sub articles?

If we could get some good guidelines, many of the disputes would be short-circuited, and we might have a good chance to move past the war and into a new era of guided editing.

This is not a standard case, but it's possible it'll do a lot more good than all the other ones.

For the record: I largely agree with docboat, with the one quibble that references can be of several levels of quality, and low-quality ones (e.g. pilot studies, very small studies, low-impact or questionable journals) that disagree with higher-quality ones should be trumped by the better ones, with how much they're trumped corresponding to the divide in quality.

I'm afraid I don't agree with Aburesz/Arion 3x3, as I think that would go against the policies WP:Undue weight and the last paragraph of WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience, but such stark differences in opinion are one of the reasons that this case should be accepted - a few clarifications and all of us will know where we stand, and can then work within our better understanding.

As you can see, we're all willing to try and get along - I suppose there may be exceptions later, and if so, well, that may force considering more traditional Arbcom sanctions in those cases. But we are coming to you as a group that wants to get along, and so I would think that Thatcher's suggestion, while perhaps helpful in some cases, would not help with those of us who really would like to work together on friendly terms, but who have such different interpretations of policy that we need some guidance to be able to do so.

Statement by Orderinchaos

While I fully respect what Adam is trying to achieve, and hope that it comes about, I don't think ArbCom would have much of a role in setting down content standards. Not sure though what the best way would be of obtaining consensus and an agreeable list of standards on such a divisive topic - my guess would be some kind of mediation. Orderinchaos 12:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Thatcher

Adam frames the dispute as a series of content questions. The remedies proposed below for all pseudoscience cases, if enacted, will allow uninvolved admins to impose sanctions on editors whose behavior is disruptive, which in theory will enforce a more reasonable and less tendentious editing environment in which those content questions can be addressed through the normal editing process.

Statement by Docboat

If we take Homeopathy as an example, this can well serve the larger area of alternative sciences and philosophies, so this is well worth considering, as Adam suggests. There are, as I see it, two main issues:

• Firstly, when explaining a topic of a fringe or minority group, can an editor push a minority view which is clearly unreferenced, but whose view is passionately held and defended by a group of like-minded believers, and contrasting this with a situation where a minority view is clearly referenced, but held to be untenable by those who espouse a different belief, show different references, and demand that the minority view references be struck because of {insert justification for rejecting the reference here} to better reflect a majority concensus.

• Secondly, when the topic concerns a fringe or minority group subject, to what extent does the mainstream majority viewpoint need to be given priority in debunking the topic to reflect the views current among society or the strongly held views of mainstream editors?

The homeopathy topic has been plagued with editors whose viewpoint is both minority (pro-homeopathy) AND unreferenced AND closed-minded to the point of wishing to write an article which is 100% pro-homeopathy. We have editors whose views are minority AND referenced AND open-minded. There are editors whose views are mainstream (anti-homeopathy) AND referenced AND open-minded to homeopathic concepts. And we are also plagued with editors whose views are mainstream, AND referenced AND closed-minded - even to the point of espousing the aim of re-writing the topic to reflect a completely 100% opposition to the topic. This is normal in any area of Wikipedia - kooks abound in normal life. But what we are seeing is a breakdown in a preparedness to listen to the other, a driving away of reasonable editors, an attempt to coerce, frighten, bully editors of either persuasion. Only a few have adopted this attitude, but it is a pernicious attitude, a destructive attitude, and is completely foreign to the concept of advancing knowledge, understanding and scholarly collation of information. So what do we, as a community, wish to do about this?

For the record, I would state that it should be the case that an article in an encyclopaedia must do the essential following:

1. Provide referenced facts
2. Describe and discuss the topic at hand

If a minority viewpoint is being examined, the topic needs to be focused on that topic, first, foremost and in detail. Opposing viewpoints belong in the article after the topic has been adequately explained. So that in controversial topics, such as Creationism the idea is completely examined in the first part of the article, derivatives of the topic are explained, and then the topic is examined from the opposing viewpoint. In this way, someone investigating a topic can be informed completely from the viewpoint of the topic described, and then sees the whole evidence for opposing viewpoints. This is, IMHO, is not only clearer, with less confusion in conflicting statements and parenthetical additions, but equally importantly denies any reasonable editor the justification for reverting statements with which they disagree. There is no need to revert - they simply add to the information in the other part of the article. An unreasonable editor will be quickly identified, and can be sanctioned by community action.

Thank you Adam, for bringing this to a larger audience.

Statement by Arion 3x3

In the Homeopathy article, as in other examples of articles on alternative medicine or spiritual beliefs, there have been strong views asserting that the "skeptical" point of view must take precedence over the neutral presentation of the subject of the article. The more extreme positions insist on the deletion of articles and content, as has happened in the last 2 months.

I maintain that this is a general encyclopedia that should be a handy source of information, and a starting place for people wanting to pursue further research into a topic. It is not a "Skeptics Encyclopedia" in which mainstream scientific opinions are portrayed as the only reality, and non-mainstream topics are dismissed with insulting labels ("pseudoscience", "fringe", "junk science", etc.), and scientific evidence that does not fit the current mainstream is ignored or dismissed, with endless questioning of their validity and where they have been published.

Taking the specific example of the article about homeopathy: it is about homeopathy, pure and simple, not about "homeopathy and how it is viewed within mainstream medicine". However "homeopathy and how it is viewed within mainstream medicine" could (and should) be a subsection of the article on the topic of "homeopathy".

Attempts by some of the editors to get the homeopathy article edited to Wikipedia's NPOV standards have unfortunately been countered by juvenile humor, threats, and false claims that supporters of homeopathy want to remove all criticisms of homeopathy. This atmosphere on Wikipedia must change. Arion 3x3 (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Clarifying comment For "skeptical", read "scientific" --RDOlivaw (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Response Ordinary skepticism (which I maintain) acts to refine and improve scientific knowledge, but "organized skepticism" is something different and alarming. This attitude rejects, deletes, and ridicules all evidence contrary to dearly held beliefs (almost bordering on religious dogma). Arion 3x3 (talk) 15:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Arthur Rubin

Still seems to be a content dispute. However, if the ArbComm were to consider it on the basis of deciding what policies determine the content, the mainstream medical or scientific view should dominate, per WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. It is fringe science, at best. Reputable studies which show an effect should be included, but so should the consensus scientific view that it's not a real effect. (As for the fact that scientific studies are done, scientists frequently test the validity of theories they don't believe. Coincidentally, none of those have produced positive results....) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi-involved user ScienceApologist

Well, here I am again.

One of the issues here is that WP:NPOVFAQ#Pseudoscience was a content decision made by arbcomm which has led to some very weird protestations. Unfortunately, arbcomm did not give guidelines on how to determine when things were "obvious" or "generally considered" pseudoscience and so the arguments rage with most POV-promoters of homeopathy claiming that it isn't pseudoscience and everybody else saying that it is. This resulted in a rather pointy deletion request for Category:Pseudoscience that seem to be driving certain administrators into bizarre tailspins. There are plenty of competent editors who are capable of writing a neutral version of the article, but their efforts tend to get thwarted by a cacophony of alt. med. POV-pushers who clog the talkpage discussion and the edit history with provacative and outrageous claims. Most of the talkpage right now is trying to explain basic scientific ideas to these people who are basically unwilling to listen: but if we cannot start out on the same page and if homeopathic supporters cannot undestand that water memory is not a scientific concept, then editing will continue to stagnate. Mediation will not work at this point because there are literally dozens of editors and one single mediator would go nuts trying to handle the morass. Maybe a cadre of admin-tool bearing mediators who had the imprimatur to block at a moment's notice would be able to help, but anything less that that will just degenerate into the madness we see now. I believe that it is time that arbcomm took WP:DE and WP:TE seriously and began a concerted effort to remove true believers from disrupting the attempted discussions.

ScienceApologist (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

I request that Arbcom accept this case because a battleground has developed at homeopathy and related articles. Editors are unable to resolve the dispute through collegial discussion and instead have resorted to out of process means, such as vexatious requests for comment and counter-attacks in the form of community ban proposals. Disruption is spilling into multiple forums and there has been no movement toward resolution. While ArbCom cannot decide the content issues, they can restrict the troublemakers and establish remedies to provide a better editing environment so good faith editors from all sides can work together. Jehochman ^Talk 14:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators: do you see, a lot of people are pleading for help? If homeopathy and related articles are placed on article probation, and any particularly disruptive editors are identified and subjected to appropriate remedies, I think that would greatly improve the situation. Adam Cuerden has been run though the mill because he made a good faith effort to control a very bad situation. You should entertain his request and address his concerns for the good of the encyclopedia. These are your responsibilities. If the case is overly-broad, you can accept it anyways, and set appropriate boundaries. Jehochman ^Talk 15:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears that article probation will be implemented via community discussion. Jehochman ^Talk 21:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:MrDarwin

I'll consider myself an "involved" party due to the homeopathy discussions going on at several plant species articles; for example see here, here, here, here, and to a lesser extent at here. I've been abstaining from these discussions for the last couple of days--initially to cool off, but now I have serious doubts as to whether I will be returning to edit at Wikipedia at all. Some rather acrimonious edit wars and heated discussion have been going on there, not about whether homeopathy is scientifically sound or clinically supported-virtually all involved editors agree that it is not--but whether it can be appropriate to mention homeopathy at all in articles about plant species that are used in homeopathy.

Thuja occidentalis may not be the best example as I believe the notability and undue weight objections may have some merit in this particular case--but the objections to mentioning the use of this species in homeopathy go far beyond notability and undue weight. What bothers me about this case is that (1) a small group of editors who have demonstrated no knowledge, expertise, or even a particular interest in botany have been editing, more or less by fiat, several plant species articles to expunge any and all references to homeopathy, without seeking or even considering consensus or compromise from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants project editors, many of whom have been working on these articles for several years (and none of whom are attempting to promote homeopathy); (2) this group of editors continues to mischaracterize other editors as "pro-homeopathy" when what those editors are trying to do is to acknowledge the well-documented use of several plant species in homeopathy; and (3) that it has become apparent that no source will be admitted as "reliable" by this group of editors, not even publications by professional botanists in the peer-reviewed botanical literature.

What I would like to see clarified is: when is it appropriate to include mention or discussion of homeopathy in an article, how to do so both factually and neutrally, and what kind of documentation is necessary to support that mention. Homeopathy is without scientific credibility or clinical support, but it has a very large number of believers and practitioners, and numerous clinical studies have examined it, if only to debunk it; for those reasons alone it is significant. Moreoever, the use of numerous plant species in homeopathy is notable enough to appear over and over in both the medical and botanical (never mind the homeopathic) literature. Many of these plants species are notable either primarily or significantly because of their medicinal usage, and in this context homeopathy is one of the significant uses of those plant species. But the repeated deletion by several editors of even the most factual, neutral, and reliably sourced mention of homeopathy smacks of censorship to me. If even botanists cannot be considered reliable sources for the uses of plant species, then I don't know who possibly can. I am not a proponent or believer of homeopathy, and this subject doesn't even particularly interest me, but I simply cannot continue to contribute to Wikipedia under these conditions. MrDarwin (talk) 15:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi-involved LinaMishima

Arion 3x3 states "In the Homeopathy article, as in other examples of articles on alternative medicine or spiritual beliefs". This is all well and good for spiritual beliefs and approaches to healing. However homeopathy is well-documented to present itself as a scientific subject. When considering due weight, we must consider the framework within which a subject presents itself. If a subject presents itself as a spiritual matter, then the majority of the weight must be applied to discussion of the spiritual aspect, comparisons to other beliefs, and so on. However, when a subject claims all the trappings of science (such as journals, proofs, methods of action, and so on) and rarely argues to be taken as a belief rather than as a science, a subject must be presented within the framework it desires for itself - science.

The need for a clarification is for matters of weight, reliable sources, and civility. Not only do we need clarification on how due weight is to be applied to a subject, but we need clarification that then the concept of reliable sources for that framework can then be applied. Finally, parties involved in this are acting quite uncivil. The skeptic/scientific crowd distinctly does have its bad eggs and members who take questionable approaches to arguing, however the 'believers' and supporters as a group features far fewer members willing to compromise, concede, and accept the other side's view points. Diffs may be found showing how scientific approach editors state that they do not believe but accept the possibility, only to then have the supporters reply with attempts to 'prove' the possibility, only inflaming debate further when they already are being accommodated. Talk pages and wikipedia is not the appropriate place for attempting to convert people to believe similarly.

The spill-over of the disputes into the plant articles is certainly proof that policies need clarification. When topics spill over into other articles and different forums, there is always some underlying problem, as is also evident in the TV episodes case. I have not been involved in that debate yet, however I feel that for some articles the brief mention is justified, whilst for others it is not.

Despite all this, however, I am still not sure if this should go to ArbCom. Although I believe that the routes to dispute resolution will fail due to vote stacking and the ability of one side to be utterly unshakable in their belief to the point of upsetting others, this does not excuse dispute resolution processes from being followed. For the matters of policy interpretation that need clarification, I strongly advise an arbitrator to find a previous case to place such motions within, so that only the policy clarifications are discussed and they are discussed swiftly. LinaMishima (talk) 15:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi-involved Infophile

I don't think anyone's going to disagree with me if I state that on Wikipedia, pretty much everything related to Homeopathy is a battleground, and as a result of this, a mess. I found out about this huge battle from spillover onto the Quackery article during the period where Homeopathy was protected (well, one of the periods). MrDarwin's noted that it's also spilled over onto plant articles, and it's also shown up in chemical articles (My biggest involvement here was in a discussion at Talk:Potassium dichromate).

I can sympathize with MrDarwin's concerns about how editors are acting on those articles, carrying out a seek-and-destroy mentality with regards to any mention of Homeopathy. It's an unfortunate side-effect of the tactics they've had to take when debating with actual Homeopathy promoters (I apologize if anyone finds "promoters" offensive. Yes, that happened). If they're given an inch, they take an article. The only way to prevent articles from descending into complete trash is to hold a solid line against them. When facing a foe who shows no chance whatsoever of changing their mind, anyone who wavers in the slightest will be completely overrun. Since Wikipedia rules of etiquette involve being at least somewhat open-minded, you can see how this becomes a problem.

Now, of course, this is just how I see the debate, with the closed-minded Homeopathy supporters forcing the mainstream editors to be equally closed-minded. I'm sure others will see it as being the other way. Maybe a neutral party will be able to decide independantly which is true. Anyways, I have to get out right now, so I don't have a chance to say everything I wanted to here. I'll finish this up when I get back (sorry if this poses any problem). --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've decided I won't say too much more if/until this case is accepted. However, I would like to strongly urge ArbCom to take this case. Things here are headed towards a disaster of some sort, and I predict that if nothing is done now, down the road there will be significant trouble of some sort. I can't say exactly what it would be, but it would likely include massive incivility as frustration keeps building up on both sides. Something needs to be done here before that happens. --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by recently-involved User:Jossi

First, a disclaimer: I have never taken an Homeopathic remedy, and understand from my own research (which is very recent) that Homeopathy's claims of being a scientific endeavor are not based on visible evidence. I came to the Homeopathy page on January 22, after seeing that the page was protected for more than 30 days. I unprotected the page and made a statement in talk about this, encouraging editors to work together and find common ground. See Talk:Homeopathy#Page_unprotected_and_How_to_write_a_lead. As an attempt to cool-off things, I proposed a voluntary 1RR pledge here: Talk:Homeopathy#Edit_warring, which did not last for long, despite an initial interest in exploring that possibility (the article has been protected again yesterday due to edit warring). Since that time, I have found myself in the midst of an ongoing battle between edit-warring factions that have been already described by other editors above, in which any attempt to bridge gaps results in bad faith accusations by *some* editors against those trying to build these bridges. I concur with MrDarwin and Docboat: ArbCom may need to hear this case and place further restrictions on this and related articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to arbCom member The Uninvited Co. below, I would kindly ask to review the editor behavior issues that have been raised here, and completely ignore all aspects related to content. Doing that may help the ArbCom see the need to hear this case. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

A voice of reason: User:Jim Butler. I hear you and commend you on your effort. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Peter morrell

I have edited this article for almost 2 years and it is as bad now as it has ever been. I agree entirely with User:docboat, User:MrDarwin and User:Arion 3x3. It is and will continue to be impossible to add anything useful to this article as long as the edit warring and ad hominem attacks continue. There is no consensus except a broad disagreement on just about everything. Most of the people involved in the heated debates know little about homeopathy, have no intention of studying it neutrally and yet have a strong emotionally-held belief that it is garbage. How can you do any rational business with such people? There has to be some method of letting the subject speak for itself on its own terms without always being crowded out by all these conflicting and largely uninformed views fighting and jostling for position and shouting down others; they're acting like a pack of hyenas. Until some peace and mutual respect returns, then no progress can be made on the substance of the article. Peter morrell 17:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by involved MilesAgain

A few days ago -- prior to my ever having edited Homeopathy -- I added an explicit statement that homeopathy was pseudoscience and quackery to the introduction, and included several peer-reviewed sources in support of those statements. I was reverted within an hour. I asked here on WP:RFAR under requests for clarification whether homeopathy is generally considered pseudoscience, or just disputed science. I moved that discussion to WP:FTN, and the overwhelming consensus among uninvolved editors was that it is generally considered pseudoscience. I realized that the quackery issue called for dispute resolution and opened an RFC asking whether homeopathy should be unequivocally described as quackery in the intro. I then added, on the talk page, a dozen more sources from peer-reviewed medical journals and academic press monographs supporting the fact that homeopathy is malicious quackery, because homeopaths openly admit to advising people to refrain from immunization. Other sources made statments about the totality of recent research supporting the fact that homeopathy is pseudoscience. Even the pro-homeopathy editors agreed that discouraging vaccination costs lives. However, only a few people agreed that homeopathy should be explicitly called quackery in the introduction, so I added a {{POV}} tag with a link to the section with my concerns on the talk page. The tag was reverted three times, and I brushed up against 3RR replacing it.

Any situation where there is edit-warring over a POV tag clearly involves behavior issues, and other methods of dispute resolution have already been attempted, so I urge the committee to accept this request. MilesAgain (talk) 17:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by involved Whig

I would encourage the ArbCom to take some action to review and correct the behavior of participants in the Homeopathy articles. I would abstain from discussion of content issues here which are not generally within the purview of the ArbCom, but focus on the incivility exhibited by some editors. Several RfCs may also be relevant to this case.

As far as talk of two sides, there are more than two perspectives represented in the discussions, and there are editors who have been neutral. Conduct issues are independent of this. Insofar as NPOV is the guiding principle of Wikipedia, there should be some reinforcement of the meaning of this policy.

It may also be appropriate to include Quackwatch in this ArbCom case. —Whig (talk) 18:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:TimVickers

It has been possible in the past to produce a consensus version of the lead (see Talk:Homeopathy/Archive_21#Proposal_for_lead) for the discussion that resulted in one reasonably successful version. However, such consensus versions are only ever metastable and the text is constantly pushed either in one direction or the other. One of the main problems is an inability of many editors to see that a neutral point of view is not synonymous with a sympathetic point of view. Similarly, an article devoted to describing an area of belief and practice in alternative medicine should not read like an attack piece in a tabloid newspaper. I am skeptical that ArbCom will have any significant effect on this dispute, but you are welcome to try! Tim Vickers (talk) 18:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi involved User:Abridged

One of the basic premises of Adam's request above is that "we are a group of people who want to get along." My experience has shown that this is far from the case. People who want to get along are not dismissive towards each other, don't apply insulting labels to each other, and actually listen to what the other has to say. Unfortunately, editors on these articles do not bother to follow established wikipedia guidelines for civility and edit warrring. Just yesterday there was an edit war over the "pseudoscience" label. I think that at the end of the day, this is a content dispute. The only way out if it will be for people to really work with each other to reach consensus with some difficult compromise on each side. Given the current behavioral standards the editors in this subject area adhere to, I am not enthusiastic that this will happen. Abridged ^talk 19:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi involved User:Jim62sch

Short of banning this subject, which Wikipedia rightfully cannot and will not do, homeopathy will be a tendentious issue for the life of WP. Arbcom cannot effectively arbitrate nor define WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:Undue weight, WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience, WP:FRINGE, et cetera, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Looking at editor behaviour on this particular article would be equally pointless as Homeopathy is essentially a battle-ground of the "believers" versus the "non-believers", and tendentiousness knows no bounds or sides in the debate.

True, there have been some calmer editors: User:Wikidudeman tried very hard to get the article as neutral as possible (to no avail), User:Jim Butler has tried to keep things balanced, same with User:Art Carlson. However, most of us have very definite opinions that really boil down to science vs mysticism (yes, this will tick some editors off, but I can think of no other way to phrase it). As those two "disciplines" or "thought paradigms" are diametrically opposed, this will always be a contentious subject; and as the propenents of both paradigms are quite passionate, there will never be a viable truce. True, editors on each side could be banned from the article, or general topic, but they would simply be replaced, continuing the process for the forseseeable future. •Jim62sch• 22:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Jim Butler

I'm involved only recently and at Adam Cuerden's invitation, and am optimistic that we can work this out. Not sure we need a case here as much as cooling-off.

Still, some things that might be considered:

(A) Adam makes a good point re educating readers about science, and the hazards of misleading readers about the weight of individual studies. I wouldn't keep such studies out of WP, but per WP:WEIGHT, we might as a rule have a "see also" template at the top of sections citing individual studies, linking to evidence-based medicine and such. That would provide adequate context, as we should. Having done so, it's OK to go into detail about homeopathy theory, even when superseded by science, on homeopathy pages. Overall, WP:WEIGHT says it all:

"Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view."

(B) Regarding WP:NPOVFAQ#Pseudoscience: those criteria were good and generally clear, but there are two possible things to clarify:

• What is the demarcation between "obvious pseudoscience" (tiny fringe, Time Cube-like stuff) and other areas that followed ("generally considered pseudoscience" e.g astrology, "questionable science" e.g. psychoanalysis etc.)? Though not explicit, it appeared to be that the latter are well-known and have attracted V RS commentary from scientists. If so, cool.

• We do need to source claims of consensus. WP:NPOVFAQ#Pseudoscience tells us that we may categorize as pseudoscience topics that "are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community". Meeting that criterion requires a source, right? Per WP:RS#Claims_of_consensus:

"Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources."

Scientific-consensus-type sources can be found in articles like this:

• List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design
• Scientific opinion on climate change

Lacking such sources, my understanding is that may not use category:pseudoscience, although we may and certainly should include criticism from reliable sources in articles. This stuff absolutely belongs in WP; only with the "category:pseudoscience" tag should we be more restrictive.

Does the above make sense to most editors, and if so, do we really need an ArbCom case? regards, Jim Butler^(talk) 22:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

ArbCom has successfully tackled other issues which boil down, as this does, to faith versus science, and in the process given valuable guidance, but this is not possible with this request as framed. There may be an issue amenable to arbitration though, if it can be distilled out. Guy (Help!) 22:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Proposal: As a first step, how about a consensus application of article probation? There are sufficient respected editors on both sides to probably make that work. Guy (Help!) 22:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Shot info

All the useful editors in articles such as this one have or are in the process of being driven away by the modern Wikipedia's obsession with keeping as many ill informed editors, obvious socks and meat puppets and POV-pushers as possible. Rather than dealing with the DE and TE problem, ArbCom just allows the problem to fester perhaps reasoning that the admins will keep control, while simultaneously persecuting any admins who do retain a modicum of control. Either way, ArbCom is currently presiding over the MySpaciation of Wikipedia due to a lack of allowing bold admins to do their job. Shot info (talk) 00:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Wanderer57

I agree with what Jzg wrote above, about distilling out an "issue amenable to arbitration" from this very broad request for arbitration.

I reviewed the archives of Talk:Homeopathy, of which there are now 26. I think it significant that in every single one of these archives, there is discussion (often heated) about whether the article is NPOV/POV. In many cases, there is debate about the meaning of the term NPOV.

It would be a huge step forward, IMO, if ArbCom would create a defined framework in which editors could create and then seek approval for a consensus definition of NPOV that would serve as a practical measure of the NPOVness of this and other highly polarized articles.

Wanderer57 (talk) 01:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I would add that four editors represented here who have a huge amount of experience of editing Homeopathy talk about NPOV as an important if not critical issue. Specifically, Adam Cuerden, Tim Vickers, Whig, and Filll. Wanderer57 (talk) 04:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Scientizzle

I've been involved in the morass at homeopathy for only a couple of weeks now. Among the general issues that have recently clogged up that talk page: the amount of the lead section devoted to outlining the scientific criticisms, the inclusion of Category:Pseudoscience (volatile consensus seems to be headed towards "Generally considered pseudoscience"), and the inclusion of {{Infobox Pseudoscience}} (which seems relatively disfavored for several reasons). Almost all the disputes concern the relevance and weight of scientific viewpoints regarding the topic.

I think there is an important, and specific, clarification that should be made in this case, perhaps expanding and tweaking the prior ruling in the pseudoscience arbcom case and it's effects on WP:NPOV:

• In articles and article sections that discuss topics (i.e., complementary and alternative medicine & modern evidence-based medicine, intelligent design & evolutionary theory, climate change denial & the scientific opinion on climate change, etc.) of considerable overlap with the general scientific discourse—often with deliberate antagonism towards the scientific consensus—should the general scientific consensus be considered the "default" neutral point-of-view?

Obviously, if this were to be confirmed or denied, it would be a valuable for discussions on the position disagreements between notable non-mainstream views and the general scientific consensus, in categorization issues (such as we've experienced at homeopathy), enacting any sort of one-way linking paradigm, and in evaluating undue weight issues. If it's rejected, specific guidelines on the manner in which to balance the scientific viewpoint (as Adam and Docboat have brought up) with the alternative claims would be advisable, particularly in determining the amount of validity to be given unscientific claims.

Such a distinction would not limit the appropriate explanations and elaborations of these topics, but would help guide the role of scientific criticism(s) within the relevant articles. Establishing a reasonable threshold for determining each dispute's scientific consensus is probably best determined in a case-by-case basis on the appropriate article talk pages, but a delineation of the specific role of the scientific viewpoint as a function of NPOV is becoming more necessary.

Statement by Filll

I first came to the homeopathy article around July of 2007 and found it an ugly disorganized mess. At that point, it was not heavily visited or edited, and I began trying to organize it and clean it up and add cited references. Many of my fellow science advocates were shocked that I was doing this.

As I made progress, User: Wikidudeman appeared and promised us he would clean it up for us in a sandbox. Although we were skeptical, I have to admit that Wikidudeman did a masterful job in forging a compromise between various camps. If there is a hero here anyplace, it is Wikidudemann and I think he has not received anywhere near enough credit for this unbelievably impressive effort. We should be almost canonizing Wikidudeman for this. And coming from me, and my previous skepticism, that is saying a lot.

Then the live homeopathy article was replaced by the sandbox article. What had been a quiet article when I first visited it became overrun by a large number of new editors who were not part of the consensus in the sandbox. Part of this is good, but also it led to more conflict. I suspect that Wikidudeman's rewritten article was more heavily linked and therefore appeared more prominently in google searches, bringing in more new editors. I also wonder if there was not some off-wiki canvassing for new editors as well, although I do not know.

The biggest problem it seems to me with WP homeopathy discussions is a misunderstanding of what constitutes NPOV on the part of some of the nonmainstream editors. There is a lot of selective reading, or misreading, or ignoring of the NPOV policy and related policies, and this leads to fighting and conflict.

I suspect that the core of the situation, the root as it were, is that we are essentially attacking people's livelihoods and careers, or they think we are. They do a search for homeopathy on google, and the 2nd hit is this Wikipedia article. They go to read it, and in the body and even in the LEAD, the WP article states that homeopathy is dismissed by the medical and scientific establishments and homeopathy is unlikely to work given what we know about chemistry, physics, etc and that there is no confirmed evidence for it.

This outrages many readers, and some of these readers are professional homeopaths. They see this as a direct affront and contrary to what their training and experience is. Some see the continuing persecution of Big Science and Big Medicine and Big Pharma, and even a conspiracy or two. And they feel that we are almost taking the food out of their children's mouths, and they are incensed and come to Wikipedia as editors to "fix" the situation. And then they run into NPOV etc. And we have a huge fight. Because what does NPOV really matter when we are talking about destroying people's livelihoods, right?

So things become more and more tense and combative and unpleasant. Recently on a couple of occasions people have started to claim that the phrase "homeopathy promoter" is offensive (an RfC was filed over this), and even worse, as sensitivities are inflamed.

So actually, in my opinion, one of the most important, valuable things that could be done is a clear and unambiguous statement, with examples, defining NPOV. The current situation and even the name "NPOV" is too unclear. Many interpret the "neutral" in NPOV to mean "no negative or contrary discussions or material, particularly in the LEAD", because negative material is not neutral, after all.

This leads to many difficulties and fights. Even to get agreement to include the word "controversial" in the first sentence or two a few months ago was quite difficult, and I would think that is one of the most obvious things one can say about homeopathy, is that it is "controversial".

The tensions are too ugly at the moment for me to even fix copy editing problems in the text. From time to time I try to discuss what NPOV means on the talk page but I am usually beaten back by a storm of angry attacks and so I retreat. People are just too angry for any real work to be done, and the same arguments happen over and over and over.

I think homeopathy is pseudoscience, at least some flavor of pseudoscience, but I am unsure if this needs to be mentioned in the article, and if it is mentioned, how prominent it needs to be. It seems to just make a bad situation worse, but I do not know. I am far more interested in maintaining overall NPOV than just fighting over the word "pseudoscience".

I do believe we should describe homeopathy on WP, but I think that this poisonous atmosphere is making it impossible to be productive. I tried to broker a compromise at the Plant articles mentioned above, but the other side, some of them botany enthusiasts and some homeopathy proponents, were not interested in a compromise. I suggested that we allow about 50 "minihomeopathy" articles or mentions in homeopathically notable animal mineral and vegetable components used to produce homeopathic remedies, so that we would not end up with 1000 or 10,000 or more homeopathic miniarticles. This was summarily rejected with prejudice. I gave up and then the two polarized sides were deadlocked again and tensions were escalating.

I am still interested in writing more homeopathy articles and even at this point have another article on homeopathic concentration scales in the sandbox, that I am writing with world-renowned homeopathic scholar, User: Peter morrell. We have been somewhat remiss on working on it over the last few weeks, but we will get back to it because I think it is both exciting and potentially highly useful for the homeopathic and scientific and medical communities trying to understand homepathy.

Clearly, contrary to what some have charged, I am not anti-homeopathy content at all. I am just interested in making sure that we include the mainstream science side in some reasonable proportion (although it is not clear how one might determine this proportion; by number of practitioners, number of patients, dollars expended, research presence, etc) for NPOV. And I want to make sure we do not end up with literally thousands of little paragraphs and subsections promoting homeopathy and about homeopathy throughout WP that would be impossible to maintain in the proper balance.

For full disclosure, I will confess that I have inadvertantly and unknowingly purchased and used homeopathic products on more than one occasion and even thought I experienced some benefits, although I know that placebo is a powerful effect. Wearing my scientist hat, I know it is extremely easy to fool oneself as well.

I think if Arbcomm decides to take this on, with one or two simple pronouncements or directives, they could probably take a lot of air out of this festering situation that appears to be spreading to other articles. For example, there is some effort to include short paragraphs in all articles on famous people that are known to have tried homeopathy, even if they rejected it subsequently because they thought it did not work. This, in addition to the moves to include homeopathy in a large number of plant, chemical, mineral and potentially animal articles, would lead to an extremely confused and diffuse body of homeopathy articles, homeopathy references, paragraphs, miniarticles etc in Wikipedia, which I am not sure would be viewed favorably by all concerned.

Quick Point of Fact by Adam Cuerden

The article has been full-protected for a week, yet again. This is only shortly after a month-and-a-half (or thereabouts) full protection, and there might have been another protection between the two. Clearly, there are major problems here, so I would strongly encourage taking the case.

Statement by Art Carlson

This article needs help. I see POV warriers on both sides. I assume and believe they are acting in good faith, but I don't see them doing what it takes to come to a consensus. Considering the difficulty and heat seen here in deciding what constitutes NPOV, I think it is necessary that a higher and less passionate instance clarifies Wikipedia policy and how it applies in concrete instances. Some points that could be clarified, which will have wider significance than just this article (and therefore are not strictly a content dispute), are

• the type and amount of evidence needed to justify characterizing a field as pseudoscience (or quackery, or fraud, or unethical),
• when it is appropriate to cite primary sources (scientific studies), when secondary sources (reviews and meta-analyses) are also available, and
• guidelines for the portion of a non-mainstream article which should be representative of the proponents, of the mainstream, or (somehow) neither.

Good night, and good luck. --Art Carlson (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Involvement: I am involved in editing this article, but I usually keep a low profile. I am personally "anti-homeopathy", but find myself often taking "pro" positions in the battles here out of principle.

Question/suggestion by ChrisO

I'm not involved in this article in any way, but it seems to me that it would be a good idea to first tackle some of the problematic editorial behaviour that has prompted this arbitration. Would the ArbCom have any objection to re-using the remedy agreed in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia? ("Any uninvolved administrator may, on their own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if that editor fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, the expected standards of behavior, or the normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; restrictions on reverts; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision.") It could be worth applying this remedy to the homeopathy article for an experimental period - say three months - to see if that reduces some of the tension. But can the use of such a remedy be authorised on the authority of uninvolved admins, or is it something that the ArbCom would have to authorise? -- ChrisO (talk) 00:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by semi-involved Sarcasticidealist

This is, at its core, more of a user conduct dispute than a content dispute, because the biggest problem at this point is that almost none of the regular contributors to the article are showing any interest in achieving consensus, even limited consensus on individual issues. I would encourage ArbComm to accept this case, if only to consider the user conduct issues. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Vassyana

Per advice received, I have listed a complaint about ScienceApologist in the homeopathy probation incident subpage (Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation/Incidents#ScienceApologist). A user (previously uninvolved) contacted me privately with the complaint as a trusted sysop. They have not been involved in the homeopathy dispute or the broader ongoing pseudoscience dispute and did not wish to become embroiled in the heated conflict. If the arbs have questions about the complaint, please feel free to contact me on-wiki or via email. Vassyana (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Following a discussion on the admin noticeboard, Homeopathy and related articles have been placed on article probation by the community [18]. Thatcher 11:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/0/0)

• The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC) I do not believe that it is within the committee's capabilities to solve the problems raised here. We're not going to issue a remedy handing an unequivocal win to either the pro-homeopathy or pro-science caucuses. You're left with WP:NPOV and WP:RS.
• Decline. The scope of the arbitration case outlined is extraordinarily nebulous. It is not possible to imagine a resolution which would work without straying recklessly into areas of making content findings. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Decline for now to see if the community-agreed article probation (see Clerk note above) to be implemented. One hopes that this will help to resolve the issues raised. A new (and more specifically defined) request for arbitration can be made if problems continue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Franco-Mongol alliance

Initiated by Jehochman ^Talk at 15:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• PHG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Elonka (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Eupator (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• WJBscribe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Other parties may need to be added.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[19] [20] [21] [22] [23]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Formal RfC (RfCHist), at Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Request for comment

• ANI thread, and multiple sub-threads: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/POV-pushing by User:PHG
• ANI thread WP:ANI#Editorial and procedural abuses by User:Elonka
• Mediation: Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Franco-Mongol alliance
• Current ANI thread: [24]

Statement by Jehochman

This is long festering dispute about the addition of ahistorical information to Middle Ages articles. Not unlike Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot we have a longstanding editor who appears to be publishing original research in Wikipedia, misrepresenting sources, and frustrating the deletion process and consensus by tendentiously reinstalling content that the community has decided to remove.

Mediation of the content dispute was attempted, but User:Tariqabjotu closed the case because the process was failing. PHG has now decided to increase the drama a notch by calling for Elonka to resign,[25]. The claims of bad faith are flying. Before this degenerates further, I request that the Committee scrutinize the behavior of all parties. Jehochman ^Talk 15:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I am very concerned that severe damage is being done to the encyclopedia through the addition of unverifiable, ahistorical information to a large number of articles. The community has been unable to control the problem. This has been going on for half a year. Rather than blocking PHG, which would be highly controversial, though justifiable in my opinion, I am bringing the matter here instead. ArbCom has sharper tools, and hopefully can craft a less restrictive remedy. Previous discussions in other forums have failed to produce any sort of resolution. The problem appears to be getting worse, not better. Arbitration sooner rather than later will help reduce the amount of disruption and bad blood. Jehochman ^Talk 15:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's a deleted article: [26] Mongol raids on Jerusalem

Here's a listed source: [27]

How does this source, which makes about five passing references to Jerusalem, the most on point one being, "the Frankish Crusaders, clinging precariously to a narrow strip of Syrian coast, both hoped and feared that the Mongols might drive the Muslims from Jerusalem and restore the holy places to Christian possession.", support an article that starts out with, "In 1260, the Mongol ruler Hulagu conquered vast parts of the Holy Land, usually in alliance with the Franks and the Christian Armenians."? Jehochman ^Talk 14:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Rlevse

I have full protected this page for two weeks. This seems to be a content dispute. It also appear Elonka did not use her admin bit in this issue and therefore is a regular editor in this matter. I posted a notice on the talk page to encourage peaceful resolution by all on the talk page. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tariqabjotu

It's tough for me to say whether this case is a content dispute (which ArbCom doesn't usually address) or a conduct issue. However, I'm inclined to encourage the ArbCom to treat this as a conduct issue and look at it as such. I know many editors who have not been following this page will immediately declare it as a content dispute, but this has long outgrown that description. Nearly every other available avenue of dispute resolution, including a mediation which I led, has been tried and -- particularly in the mediation case -- failed miserably. The article and its talk page, for the most part, can speak for themselves; we see repeated accusations of ownership, a slow-motion edit war, assumptions of bad faith, continuous allegations that sources are being misrepresented -- all the elements that together make a resolution to the now five-month dispute impossible by any other means. Additionally, the actions of certain editors on the article have made the conditions for less involved editors that want to contribute to this article just about unbearable. We have a serious problem here, one that calls into question the integrity of this article, and perhaps dozens others. Investigating the sort of behavior alleged here is not unheard-of, and I request that ArbCom do so again. -- tariqabjotu 16:01, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick reply to something Justin said: there is an Evidence phase within arbitration cases and this is not it. I assume Jehochman, and any others with specific allegations, will present such evidence when the appropriate time comes. -- tariqabjotu 18:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Justin

I, like User:Tariqabjotu am having difficulty deciding whether this issue is truly a content issue or a behavioral issue. However, I tend to lean towards the former and the evidence presented by User:Jehochman are all examples of content disputes. I'm extremely troubled by Jehochman's accusations (provided without dif's) of original research, and disagree with his assertion that there was a consensus to remove the content PHG added back into the article. I believe the Sadi Carnot arbitration isn't a particularly good analogy to this problem. The primary issue in that dispute was admins reverting each other, which hasn't been the case for this dispute.

I would also note, that I made a request for page protection for the article some time before User:PHG was given a 24 hour block. It was ignored until the block took place, and then denied after input from an involved admin. [28] I applaud User:Rlevse for the two week page protection, as I do believe this will resolve the issues at hand. I have absolute faith that all of the editors involved will work toward a consensus, and eventually that consensus will be reached (with or without User:PHG agreeing). I consider User:Jehochman's suggested remedy of indef blocking an editor with nearly 30,000 edits completely beyond reason. The page protection should offer more than enough time for involved editors to find a consensus version of the article. Justin ^chat 17:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Response to Tariqabjotu: Granted, the ArbCom request doesn't require posting evidence, but an admin made some pretty extraordinary claims about a longstanding editor. By failing to give any evidence to his accusations, it appears that the motive was to poison the well. PHG's disruptions of the article in question were definitely inappropriate, but the sentence "publishing original research in Wikipedia, misrepresenting sources, and frustrating the deletion process and consensus by tendentiously reinstalling content that the community has decided to remove," is a fairly heavy-handed accusation. Jehochman followed up these accusations with a suggested remedy of indef blocking.

Given all of that, I think that since both the accusations and suggested remedy are fairly extreme, it would have been prudent to back up his accusations with evidence. Perhaps PHG has some behavioral problems outside of the article in question, and if that's the case, I'm sure the ArbCom members (and those of us that are unaware of other problems) would like to see evidence of it. In lieu of that, all of us are forced to assume Jehochman made his claims in bad faith or that PHG is indeed a bad faith editor as his claims assert. Neither case is preferable, hence my original point. Justin ^chat 20:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Shell Kinney

This case should most definately be accepted; while an underlying content dispute was the catalyst, the behaviors of the editors involved, in particular those of PHG, have spiraled out of the community's ability to control. For example:

• Since the abortive FAC last September, numerous attempts have been made to improve the article; all significant changes (and even some minor ones) have been reverted by PHG [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] who displays rather clear ownership issues [37].
• The minority POV which was originally under dispute has now sprawled to more than 50 paragraphs in this article (even though the edit summary said "revert" [38]) and has been systematically inserted into scads of other articles creating more than a little bit of disruption that is requiring some rather serious cleanup efforts. (See this talk page post for the list of articles known to have been affected) The behavioral side of this issue stems from PHG is abusively edit warring, subverting myriad other articles and creating numerous POV forks in an attempt to "win" a content dispute.
• PHG has also canvassed in an attempt to skew the consensus. [39] [40] [41] [42]
• At least 6 other editors (myself included) are currently working productively on the article via talk page discussion; this was especially apparent during the 24 hours when PHG was blocked from interfering. These editors do not all agree, so this is not about one side winning the dispute.

The committee also needs to be aware that this dispute has attracted certain editors who, for one reason or another, wish to disrupt Elonka's activities on wiki such as editors from past or current Arb cases which she was involved in.

We're not asking ArbCom to intervene in a content dispute and, in fact, don't need any intervention since absent one highly disruptive editor, talk page discussions are resolving the content issues. However, I would strongly urge the Committee to review the clear behavioral problems that stemmed from this dispute. Shell ^babelfish 19:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

This seems to be yet another argument between those promoting fringe theories or views and those holding a mainstream view on historical issues. Elonka appears to have been trying to defend the NPOV on this and related articles against what seems to be some odd behaviour on the other side. The dispute has gone on so long now (several months) that it's way beyond whatever it started out being about and now is essentially an issue where consensus has failed, and it may well be that some of the individuals on one side never had any intention of accepting a consensus removed from their own view. I would agree with Jehochman and Shell Kinney's points above, and WJB's points below. Orderinchaos 23:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Daniel

I have deleted and protected Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Franco-Mongol alliance, to protect the privileged nature of Mediation Committee mediation (see also Wikipedia:Arbitration policy#Hearing). Daniel (talk) 03:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Elonka

My statement is going to be about two views here, one in how I see this on-wiki, and another off. On-wiki, I don't think it's appropriate to have an ArbCom case on this at this time. I see ArbCom as something that is needed for complex user conduct cases, where the community has not been successful in dealing with them via other means. In this particular case, the community has been successful. We had one editor, PHG, who has been camping on an article in violation of WP:OWN, who has been using bad sources and has been misinterpreting good sources, and has been creating multiple POV forks. See User:Elonka/Mongol quickref for a few paragraphs that give context about the history involved, and the related content disputes. The proper way to handle this via Wikipedia procedures (without ArbCom) is to identify problems with the article(s), build consensus on the talkpage(s), and proceed with cleanup. Which is exactly what we've been doing lately. Now, it is true that in the early part of this dispute, meaning Fall 2007, things were exacerbated because we didn't have very many participants who understood the history involved, so we ended up with a kind of stalemate between me and PHG, with him saying, "Here's the history," and me saying, "No, that's not history, that's you cherry-picking and misinterpreting sources." Over the last month (January 2008) though, we have gotten more editors in to look at the situation, and consensus-building has been much easier (except for PHG). So, in a case where we have one editor who is not willing to work in a cooperative and collegial manner with other editors towards consensus-building, we already have Wikipedia procedures in place -- we have uninvolved administrators who can look into the situation, and warn and block as necessary. There is no need for ArbCom, as all that ArbCom would be able to do would be to confirm the same thing that any uninvolved administrator would: "PHG is being disruptive, PHG is reverting obsessively, PHG should be blocked if he continues to disrupt." We don't need a multi-month ArbCom case that wastes dozens of hours of time on the part of multiple good editors, to come up with that same conclusion.

And now, the off-wiki aspect. There are times in my life that I've got lots of free time for Wikipedia, and there are times that I don't. This coming month is going to be a "don't" time, since I've got a major tradeshow coming up in a few weeks. So if it's decided that there is going to be an ArbCom case on this, I just won't be able to participate much. Which will put ArbCom and the other participants in an awkward situation where they're forced to decide on either proceeding without me, or by further extending the case to allow time for me to assemble my own evidence. Which (my free time availability) I know is not one of the major factors on "should a case be accepted or not," but I wanted to make the Committee aware.

My own off-wiki time constraints aside though, I still recommend that this case not be accepted. The community is already dealing with the situation, and I can't see as any ArbCom decision would really change much about how the situation is proceeding. What would the result be? "PHG has been disruptive, PHG is cautioned to work in a collegial manner with other editors. Anyone engaging in disruptive behavior can be blocked by any uninvolved administrator." Which is what we're already doing. --Elonka 09:14, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by PHG

I have been contributing to Wikipedia since 2004/03/06, with over 23,389 edits to date, all referenced from reputable published material. I created more than 200 articles, and 8 articles which I created or unstubbed reached FA status (Boshin War, Imperial Japanese Navy, Hasekura Tsunenaga, Indo-Greek Kingdom, History of Buddhism etc...). I also have contributed hundreds of photographs from Museums around the world. My main interests revolve around cultural interaction through the Ages, and I enjoy developing content on these subjects. I am a multinational business manager, with over 20 years experience working in Asia, the US and Europe. I am a fervent supporter of Wikipedia:NPOV policy, according to which all significant views should be presented in articles.

When I created the Franco-Mongol alliance article in August 2007, I soon entered into heated discussions with Elonka whether there was actually an alliance or not and other details. She first tried to have the article renamed, but failed (here). Despite the quantity of authors who specifically described this alliance (here), she kept arguing that the view was "fringe" and did not deserve balanced representation with the alternative view ("only attempts at an alliance"...). She then tried quite violently to discredit me through the Administrator notice board, but again failed (here), thanks to several users who spoke up for me. I responded by pointing out her behaviour (here), without asking for punitive action. Actually her actions in relation to this article generated many of the Opposes in her recent nomination as Admin (here). She still spends a huge amount of time leaving enormous diatribes against me on various Talk Pages and User Pages (here or here for example). I even had to file a claim for harassment (here). Besides, I'm glad I'm not the only one: Elonka has a huge history of dubious disputes and litigations with many other contributors as well (an example).

Recently, Elonka again attacked the Franco-Mongol alliance page, trying to force her own rewrite, deleting 130k of content established collaboratively over a period of 6 months and over 300 academic sources, through false claims of consensus (Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#False claim of consensus). I think this conduct is unrespectfull of Wikipedia rules and unethical. She also has thrown false accusations in order to smear me (Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Why is the "longer version" get even longer?), and resorted to personal attacks, calling me a lier [43], when she is actually the one lying about facts, like claiming I added 50k of new content through a reinstalment of deleted content (here). On the Franco-Mongol alliance article I have only been upholding Wikipedia's rule that is there is no consensus for a replacement of a main article by an individual's own version, then the status quo should prevail. I expect every Wikipedian to uphold these rules as well.

What the heck? I'm here to share knowledge and contribute fascinating, referenced, stuff about ancient history and cultural interaction, and I must say I am not at all interested in Wikipedia politics or lobbying day long against specific users. Best regards to all. PHG (talk) 11:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Wjhonson

I am not an involved editor in this case. Wikibits of this situation have deposited themselves on various other pages and it peaked my interest to take a look. My rough estimate of the problem is that there was an initial failure to strive for consensus. The catalyst appears to be a complete re-write done in user space was plopped down in situ on top of a large established article. Frankly, were that to happen to an article I had largely contributed to, I would probably react in the same way as PHG. I do not find the approach initially taken in this case to be any remote attempt to strive for consensus. As the talk page clearly shows, many editors were against the rewrite and many were for it. However in that situation, normal consensus building would be to leave the status quo article as it. "Consensus decision-making is a decision-making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision. Consensus is usually defined as meaning both general agreement, and the process of getting to such agreement. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned primarily with that process." A more temperate approach, if the underlying issue were size would have been to fork the content. A more temperate approach, if the underlying issue were neutral-point-of-view would have been to take disputes to that Talk board. As well we have a reliable sources noticeboard, and a Talk page at original research. The approach taken in this case, has led, over many months, here. I think that's a fair indication, in light of the thousands of articles PHG has contributed to, that an ArbCom ruling would be effective.Wjhonson (talk) 11:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Durova

I've watched this conflict from afar since the Franco-Mongol alliance FAC of last summer. History is a field where autodidacts often have trouble due to unfamiliarity with priority of sources and historiography. A fair portion of books in the field have been written by untrained persons, some of which are excellent and some of which ought to be classified as humor or fantasy. The more faciful versions get repeated by other autodidact authors because they seem interesting, so absurdities sometimes gain the illusion of a pedigree among readers whose only means of guessing what constitutes mainstream history is to count the number of published books that advance a given hypothesis. This dynamic has manifested in any number of ways at Joan of Arc although the problem is less burdensome now that the article is featured (that Joan of Arc was a man, that she escaped execution, that she was the bastard daughter of the queen of France, etc. etc.). These editors aren't necessarily intending to violate WP:NPOV; they simply lack the knowledge base and critical training to determine what's fringe and what's mainstream.

The most serious assertion at this RFAR is misrepresentation of sources. I have seen no actual evidence to substanitate this. I request that the Committee accept this case to determine one way or the other. Durova^Charge! 13:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Having now seen evidence of misrepresentation of sources, I urge the Committee to not only accept this case but to rename it PHG. The problem is greater than one article and is largely - perhaps entirely - confined to his conduct. This editor has been conducting what Wikipedia euphemistically calls original research and what the rest of the world terms academic dishonesty. That is, he has been misusing source material in order to claim that recognized experts have asserted things which they cannot reasonably be supposed to have concluded - all tending toward a hypothesis that the Mongol Empire was considerably more powerful than mainstream historians concur that it was. When other editors call upon him to step back from this extreme and novel view, he forks articles to continue promulgating it; when they identify specific misuse of one source, he changes the subject to assertions about other sources. Nothing persuades him. I've seen Adam Bishop (an actual doctoral candidate in Medieval studies) attempt to advise PHG and get rebuffed.

PHG's volunteer efforts for Wikipedia are considerable and his efforts to improve the site appear to be sincere. He has contributed multiple featured articles on various subjects, yet his conduct in this matter leaves me questioning the integrity of his other contributions. When NPA Personality Theory passed GAC before getting deleted, thoughtful Wikipedians were shaken. Franco-Mongol alliance progressed as far as FAC before an editor recognized its flaws, which raises serious questions about the eight other articles that have become FAs under this editor's guidance. This is an arbitration-worthy request, and an important one. Durova^Charge! 02:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by WJBscribe

I am in two minds about whether this matter is appropriate for ArbCom. On the one hand, we do have mounting user conduct issues - especially the increasingly ludicrous ownership of the central article by PHG - and a failed attempt at mediation. On the other, we have a dispute heavily routed in content that is hard to process without getting involved in those issues. Involving itself in matters of content is something ArbCom prefers not to do but where the central issues are about accuracy of information, representation of sources and neutral POV it is hard to separate conduct and content. Violation of content policies is misconduct but it is hard to determine whether such conduct breaches have occured without taking a view on the content questions. Ultimately either PHG is trying to push a misleading account of the events covered by the article or he is not.

If ArbCom is willing to have a thorough look at this issue - including the underlying problems with whether Wikipedia policies on neutral point of view and fringe theories have been followed - then there are clear merits in pursuing this case. If only the most superficial of conduct issues will be touched upon, then this will likely prove a waste of time. A general admonishment for participants to work towards consensus isn't in my opinion going to be of help here. WjBscribe 15:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kafka Liz

After silently following the dispute at Franco-mongol alliance for some months, I eventually got involved over what I saw as persistent problematic behaviour on the part of PHG. My initial concern stemmed from the creation of a series of forks that PHG presented as good faith attempts to shorten the main article, but in reality served to preserve and expand upon strongly disputed sections. Further examination of the article and its history convinced me that PHG's activities were in violation of two fundamental areas of Wikipedia policy, namely WP:OWN and WP:NPOV (specifically WP:UNDUE). Attempts by myself and other editors to work with PHG regarding these concerns have been met first with polite stonewalling and evasive answers, then accusations of "being polemical and systematically banding together, [44]" and finally silence. I now see PHG resorting to various strategies of gaming the system: engaging in slow revert wars to evade 3RR, wikilawyering [45], and simply refusing to respond directly to the concerns of others.

I concur with the statements put forth by Jehochman, Shell Kinney, Orderinchaos, and WJBscribe, and believe Jehochman's reference to the Sadi Carnot case is particularly fitting to the case at hand. Kafka Liz (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by (fairly) uninvolved Iridescent

As someone who's spent an inordinate amount of time spatting with Elonka over this — and as a former occasional collaborator with Sadi Carnot (albeit not on the problematic articles) — I do agree that Arbcom ought to get involved here. After a lengthy argument with Elonka after I accused her of edit-warring on the issue, I actually went and checked the contributions of PHG more thoroughly, and on inspection he's the very model of a true problem editor. As with Sadi Carnot, he makes enough valid and high-quality contributions that they mask the problem edits, unless one goes looking for them. On the articles in question, his "sources" seem to be a mix of mistranslations, fabrications and self-published crackpots, and he's using these sources to replace material from numerous multiple independent sources.

There's always going to be a problem with articles like this, in that they rely on sources derived from other sources far removed from the original sources (unless we happen to have an editor floating around who speaks mediaeval Armenian); however, his pet theory (that Jerusalem was captured by the Mongols) would have been so significant, one would have to assume it would be chronicled in both Christian and Islamic histories; in this case, I think it is reasonable to assume that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Normally, this would just be a content dispute on a very low-traffic article that wouldn't warrant an Arbcom intervention. However, this saga is starting to have spin-off effects on the rest of Wikipedia which in my opinion warrants a high-level intervention by either Arbcom or Jimbo to put a stop to the whole mess. Not only is this dispute starting to be used by WR et al as anti-Wikipedia "evidence", but it's already derailed one RFA of Elonka's and (almost) derailed another*, and is starting to waste a lot of time of a lot of regulars who could be more profitably be doing something useful. — iridescent 15:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

*I know I opposed both of Elonka's RFAs for other reasons, but they should not have failed for this reason and I freely admit I was wrong; the accusation of edit-warring was unfair in this case.

Statement by uninvolved TimVickers

Any editor who writes that another contributor has "attacked the Franco-Mongol alliance page" and complains about "hijacking of this page" is, in my opinion, suffering from serious ownership issues. This is not a simple content dispute, the behavior of the editors involved needs to be examined in detail. I recommend the committee accept this case. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by John Kenney

My familiarity, at this point, with what ArbCom does, exactly, is not all too clear, so I can't say directly whether Arbcom should accept this case. I do think that PHG is a serious problem editor, that his contributions are full of incredibly tendentious arguments, and that he holds ground with a tenacity that makes it difficult for normal editing practice to arrive at consensus in improving these articles. As Tim Vickers notes above, PHG has serious ownership issues with articles he creates, and, further, he is very difficult to reason with. Something certainly ought to be done about him. john k (talk) 20:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Adam Bishop

My problem is not so much the content, just that there is too much of it, and that PHG has no idea how to read, study, or write history. It's embarrassing to read and is a perfect example of why Wikipedia is untrustworthy. But now it is too big to fix. If it were up to me, I would recommend deleting it and everything else that has been written about it, leaving it for a few months, and then restarting from scratch...but that's just me. I'm not sure this needs to be subjected to yet another Wikipedia process, but I agree with John that PHG is a huge problem. I know that PHG has been here for a long time and had worked on a large amount of articles on obscure topics, and that is usually a great thing, but after my experience here, I wonder whether those articles are as awful as this one is... Adam Bishop (talk) 08:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Pupster21

I agree completely with what Vickers said, I think this is a dispute with a little more than content involved. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 13:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Philwelch

Whether or not this case is accepted (I have no recommendations), I think it would be prudent for Arbcom to consider the firm distinction between content disputes and user conduct issues arising out of content disputes. From what I have gathered (but not personally confirmed), the article ownership and user conduct issues revolving around PHG in this case are reminiscent of an Arbcom case I was involved with some years ago: that of Copperchair. I advise all parties and administrators to review and consider that precedent. Philwelch (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/2/0/0)

• Accept to look at user conduct issues that are interfering with reaching consensus. The Community has not been able to sort this out. FloNight (talk) 21:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept; per Flonight there is disruption of article writing; serious issues of user conduct are alleged and there has been a failure of mediation. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
• Decline, we are unlikely to be able to help. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Deskana (talk) 11:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Decline, I'm inclined to agree with UC. I've asked a few editors to give their opinions. I may change my mind based upon further review. Paul August ☎ 18:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Appeals and requests for clarification

Place appeals and requests for clarification on matters related to past Arbitration cases in this section. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. Place new requests at the top.

Everyking 3

When I made my previous appeal request a month ago, I was told to wait until February because at that point the arbitrators would have to look at whether or not to permanently lift my article parole, and that it would be more convenient for them to also review my other restrictions at the same time. I am unsure whether it is necessary to make a request about this; I was told by an arbitrator that the ArbCom intended to look at the matter regardless, but that it would still be helpful if I mentioned the appeal here. Everyking (talk) 06:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Could you also please post a link to the prior decision(s) and restriction(s) that you would like to have lifted, since there has been a lot of turnover on the committee since the earlier cases. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I had assumed the ArbCom already knew this, but the case in question is Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3. According to former arb Raul, remedies 5 and X from the original case and remedy 4 from the amended ruling are still in effect. As I have explained previously, I do not believe that the remedies as they are written provide for these restrictions to continue after Nov. 2007, but Raul did not agree with me, so I have to rely on the ArbCom to decide whether A) they have already expired, B) they are still in effect but should be lifted now, or C) they should remain in place indefinitely or until some specified later point in time. Additionally, the suspension of my parole on pop music articles in November 2007 will expire this month, so it is necessary for the ArbCom to decide whether to drop the parole permanently or reimpose it. Everyking (talk) 22:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Request extension of RFAR/Martinphi-ScienceApologist to deal with multiple article disruptions

There is an ongoing problem with articles covering fringe scientific topics. As seen in the above case request, fringe articles are clearly targeted by a determined group of editors interested in inflating the legitimacy of the topics and de-weighting the scientific or evidence-based view. It is part of the wikipedia way of doing things that neither admins, nor arbcom, can make content rulings. Admins could be given more advanced tools for dealing with disruption, though.

Two prior cases, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/ScienceApologist, dealt with narrow topics and resulted in bans for a few single-purpose editors and "cautions" to ScienceApologist. As a result of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist, Martinphi is placed on probation and ScienceApologist on civility parole, but these remedies do not begin to address the broad range of disruptive behavior and continual disruption at multiple articles. There have been multiple complaints filed against ScienceApologist, mostly groundless or incredibly minor, by editors seemingly more interested in getting rid of him than editing collaboratively, and ScienceApologist has unfortunately taken the bait more than once and responded in an inappropriate manner. There has also been edit warring on multiple articles, and at least two three disputed articles are currently protected.

I believe that a broad article probation covering the entire topic is needed to give admins the tools to deal with this long-running battle. I propose giving admins discretion to ban individual editors from pages they edit disruptively, for the short or long term, enforceable by blocking, and/or to place editors on revert limitation. Because the three previous cases have resulted in only probation for one editor and civility parole for a second, out of a large group of interested editors, has not given administrators an effective means of dealing with this long-term problem area. Thatcher 23:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Please propose specific language for a motion that potentially affected editors and the committee can review. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be premature to use the ultra-broad general sanctions imposed at Israel-Palestine, but 1RR and page bans are needed to impose some sort of order here. Thatcher 00:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

May I comment here? Anthon01 (talk) 00:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, general discussion is permitted. Thatcher 01:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments here are encouraged. To be most helpful, they should deal with how problems on these articles can be minimized going forward so that accurate, NPOV articles will be written and a harmonious editing environment maintained. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we can all recognize that Homeopathy is a controversial science, but pseudoscience is a pejorative that seems to be part of the problem here. Because what we need to move forward is an environment where editors treat one another with respect and let the sources speak for us in the article space. —Whig (talk) 01:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

comment: If the definition of Pseudoscience applies to Homeopathy, then WP:SPADE. This type of useage is not inappropriately pejorative. (See also List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The definition does not fit in my opinion, but without bringing content issues here, that list is clearly NPOV disputed, and the ArbCom has spoken on this issue before. By their definitions, I believe Homeopathy qualifies as an alternative theoretical formulation, but certainly not obvious pseudoscience. —Whig (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it's a problem. Thatcher 01:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should be more conservative when stating what "we can all recognize" or agree upon. I certainly don't agree that Homeopathy is not pseudoscience (it is rightly included in Category:Pseudoscience), nor do I agree that the term "pseudoscience" is a pejorative - and apparently neither does the Arbitration Committee. Dlabtot (talk) 02:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

To clarify what I said, I think we can all agree that it is controversial. —Whig (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be premature to use the ultra-broad general sanctions imposed at Israel-Palestine - Thatcher, what are those sanctions? Perhaps some of them would be appropriate here. Fwiw, I generally support your motion. Dlabtot (talk) 05:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Dlabtot, here is the link to the Palestine-Israel sanctions. Thatcher 12:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Thatcher, if you read past the rhethoric and look at the actual page disruptions, especially the ones that lead to a page being locked, you'll find that only one or two editors cause it while everyone else is participating on the talk page, acting civily and with respect for each other, trying to reach consensus despite individual differences in viewpoint. There really are only a handful of editors (less than five) who don't care about that process and just want their way, wiki-process be damned. The rhetoric you read from them centers around their view that the wiki-process of trying to develop consensus needs to be changed because they feel it is broken, when surprisingly this system seems to work for everyone else but them. The system isn't broke, just some editors don't care about it. Check the logs on the two articles you used as examples and see who caused the pages to be locked, and why. In both cases it's because they (admittedly) didn't care about the consensus-building process. They're the same ones that are saying massive reform needs to take place. While they're busy disrupting pages and saying Wikipedia is broken, everyone else is on the talk page trying to address actual problems. Please don't confuse their view as a correct assessment of the problem when they're the ones that are acting like WP:MASTADONS. Everyone else seems to be able to get along just fine. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't know to whom you are referring and perhaps it is best if you don't name names. Maybe. The point is that aside from a few single purpose accounts that have been banned for significant problems (Like User:Richard Malter and User:Asmodeus), three arbitration cases have not either resolved the problems of these articles or given admins tools to resolve them. Unless you can convince the Arbitrators to open a case against the 4 or 5 specific editors you are thinking of, the ability to levy page bans and 1RR limitation should allow admins to get these disputes under control. And if you are correct, then only those 4 or 5 editors will be affected. Thatcher 01:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I would never dream of filing an arbitration case against the 4 or 5 mastadon editors who are actually disruptive, even if I wanted to, when vexatious complaints are considered part of the problem and any admin can ban me for it. As I'm sure you know, misreadings and misinterpretations are common at Wikipedia. I was just pointing out that there are far more editors willing to work together on these articles than those who don't, and that the handful of mastadons are the real problem. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 05:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
      • The range of articles covered by Thatcher's proposal is remarkably broad. Of course, I've often agitated for something similar, so I can't argue with it. I'd only say that admin discretion is paramount: these articles are frequented by single-purpose agenda-driven accounts which edit-war, edit tendentiously, etc. These sanctions should not hit editors who have to deal with such accounts, but they run the risk of being used in such a manner. That said, provided there's some standard recourse for review of sanctions (via WP:AN/I and/or ArbCom), I would find myself hard-pressed to disagree with Thatcher on this. MastCell ^Talk 05:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
        • • Odd you mention that, because it's exactly what led to this whole flareup. I can't mention names for fear of being sanctioned, but one editor that is a self-admitted agenda-driven editor had sanctions placed against him after two arbitrations where he was found to be consistently uncivil. He calls some people some names, someone complains, and the editor gets blocked. A few days after he is unblocked he edit wars against RfC consensus, someone complains, he gets blocked again, and two articles get locked down because of his massive edits that resulted in edit warring. A few days after that he is uncivil again and gets blocked again. In the wake of all this, a bunch of supporting editors say he's being "provoked" (though no one talked to him before the edits) and say that none of this is actually his fault but rather vexatious litigation. These editors are all riled up and calling for better tools to stop editors from "picking on him" (some of these people are admins). Look, I usually get along with the editor, and don't have a problem with him except when he's gone all angry mastadon, but sometimes we do disagree. How am I not supposed to be afraid of admins running around with banning powers on anyone they feel is disruptive?, some of whom clearly want to "avenge" him. It's just one editor who started this whole thing, while acting like your typical, angry, agenda-driven editor. Everyone else was mostly getting along. (Note: I didn't mention names and tried to be as civil as I could and still explain the situation the way it happened; please don't ban me). --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Why make the pretense of not naming names when you've done all but that? Although he cannot respond here due to his block, I've notified the ostensibly innominate user. Please, if a discussion like this ever comes up about me (even if not by name) at a place like this, extend me the same courtesy. Antelan ^talk 07:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If I had thought to I would have, but it's not like he can be sanctioned for anything I'm saying. He hasn't done anything new. My point is that these are broad ranging sanctions that could be misused, especially considering the exact circumstances involved that we're apparently not supposed to talk about because it's considered picking on someone. I don't understand any of this, quite frankly, because it focuses on possible future disruptions from a broad range of editors, when there's logs that show the locus of the dispute already in a small handful of editors. The locus is in editors who see Wikipedia as a battleground, not normal editors who get along and participate in normal content disputes. He knows how I feel about it, that I don't want him sanctioned further, and that I'd just like to see him stop being contentious. I'll send him a note. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 07:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Honestly, if arbitration members feel it is a necessary addition to the Martinphi-ScienceApologist case to impose sanctions on a broad number of editors to prevent disruption, it's not that bad of a proposal. The current wording needs to drop the "vexatious litigation" part in a bad way though, because that's the part that is going to cause even more headaches as it's too open to interpretation. The proposal is effectively saying the ArbCom is tired of hearing about disruptions on these articles and is going to empower admins to deal with it by providing blocking tools. However, no one actually involved in the dispute is allowed to ask for help in resolving the situation because it may be interpreted as "solely to harass or subdue an adversary", in which case you'll be blocked too. Instead the only way to resolve the dispute is to hope that an uninvolved administrator happens upon the dispute by chance, reads through all the discussions, understands what's going on, and sides with you. Otherwise, you could get blocked just for telling the administrator that a disruptive editor made two reverts instead of one, or that someone called you a name. It happens. Busy admins don't always know what's going on and can interpret your good faith complaint in a bad way. I personally don't think that editors who try to work well with others, and don't see Wikipedia as a battleground, should be sanctioned and limited in what they can do here, but that's just my take on the subject. I am fully convinced, though, that imposing restrictions on what someone can complain about is just going to lead to more headaches. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• So then, do you think that there should be no sanction for vexatious litigation? That someone should be able to bring repeated frivolous actions until they wear down their opposite number? Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

On one hand people are saying there's serious problems in these articles that to led to massive disruptions, and that editors should reign themselves in and follow normal dispute resolution processes. Then they say complaining is frivilous. The two views aren't compatible. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure they are compatible. Nobody is saying that complaining is frivolous. Frivolous complaints are frivolous. If someone is both litigious and can't tell the difference between frivolous and serious problems, they will quickly discover the difference. This isn't all that different from Wikipedia under normal conditions. Antelan ^talk 18:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Replied below. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(Unindented) If I may, here are two diffs the underscore the problem we are having with moving forward on many of these pages.[46] [47] I am not certain that admin tools alone will solve this problem. Regardless of the merits, I suspect admins, in good faith, could be found who would support both sides of these discussions. There are also admins, who in good faith, believe that discouraging "minority or fringe views" are more important than civility. Because of that, I am concern about the misuse of additional tools against editors who support the inclusion of RS/V minority views on fringe topics. Anthon01 (talk) 07:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, that's a valid point - it illustrates the fact that the Quackwatch article is being disrupted, as it has been for years, by voceferous opponents of mainstream medicine and Stephen Barrett, and that this is winding up those who are here to write an encyclopaedia rather than serve an agenda. So much so that several people believe you, Anthon01, to be Anthony Zaffuto, and thus almost certainly an unacceptable party on that page per the restrictions and ban on Ilena Rosenthal. Guy (Help!) 12:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

You have made my point exactly. Here is an admin who has it in for me. IMO, he has it in for me because is certain situations I have opposed SA. It is probable that in most situations I would agree with SA. However in these cases it isn't so. Like SAs current attempt to purge wikipedia of most mention of homeopathy. Guy has admitted himself he has a prejudice against non-mainstream writers. What do I do about that? I see pattern with your accusations. They are baseless and diffless. Why don't you prove it! When are going to stop your baseless and diffless accusations? Anthon01 (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Instead of discussing the content or merits, Guy is baselessly accusing and attacking me personally. Is there a remedy for admin abuse? Anthon01 (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

You've made a claim. Who are the several people? Isn't there a policy against revealing personal information "A user may be blocked when necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public. A block for protection may be necessary in response to: ... * disclosing personal information (whether or not the information is accurate). Where do I address this issue? Anthon01 (talk) 16:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume Guy was referring to this discussion of you on the Administrator's noticeboard, but Guy can correct me if I'm wrong. Antelan ^talk 18:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Two questions here: (1) How can you reliably distinguish single-purpose and argumentative-but-new editors from new editors? To be frank, I don't trust the judgment of some administrators involved in this area when they label some editors as SPAs and trolls. (2) Under these sort of restrictions, what would have happened to User:MatthewHoffman? Would he have been indefinitely blocked? Should indefinite blocks be handed out as liberally as they are? (I see the provision here says that the blocks should be escalating - a point I wholeheartedly agree with). OK, that was more than two questions, but I don't want to see editors who participate constructively on talk pages banned merely because they argue for the wrong weight in an article. They can be wrong without being disruptive. Carcharoth (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If the committee finds the inclusion of "vexatious litigation" to be a problem they can remove it. As anyone can see from the recent discussion of Martinphi at WP:AE, while I agree that Martinphi's current probation could allow him to be banned from pages like RFC and RFAR for making disruptive complaints, I would be very reluctant to actually do so. In response to Carcharoth, probations are usually enforced incrementally. If this expanded authority were passed, I would unprotect Homeopathy and WTBDWK and place all editors on 1 revert per week limit, while encouraging talk page discussion. The next step would be bans from the article while continuing to allow use of the talk page. Actual bans from talk space are very rare, even under Arbitration, and should obviously be used with caution. In the case of MatthewHoffman, if he was found to be disruptive, the sanction would call for an article ban, not a total ban, and he could appeal as indicated. Thatcher 17:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. Are there restrictions on what other admins can do and how this interacts with other processes? For instance, what is admins disgreed on what to do and one of them carried out an indefinite block for reasons related to that article, or if a community discussion based on behaviour at that article ended up with a complete ban of a particular editor? Carcharoth (talk) 17:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Under the terms of the remedy, a user would have to have been banned from some articles and/or violated a 1RR limit and been blocked at least 5 times before we started talking about an indefinite ban under the remedy. Arbitration remedies do not supersede ordinary admin action but are meant to give admins more tools; they do not immunize the editor from ordinary and normal discretionary actions. Suppose an editor was placed on 1RR for all pseudoscience articles, and later edit wars on an unrelated article; he could blocked for edit warring with or without violating 3RR at any admin's discretion like any other editor can be. Likewise the community can discuss and implement a community ban for someone even without that editor having reached his sixth blocking offense under the remedy, such discussion to be subject to the usual rules for such things. Thatcher 18:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I would support wholeheartedly these new restrictions. I think we have been too accommodating so far and that has not resolved much. These articles can and should be able to achieve NPOV and stability if the opposing parties would allow/encourage wider participation. I attempted offer help at the Quackwatch article and some other articles, but iy is extremely tedious and after a while whatever gains are made, are lost again in the never ending disputes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I would remove the ""vexatious litigation" item, though. Users need to have a way to alert admins and others without the fear that if they do, they will get dinged. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand your (and Nealparr's) concern. But the history of the present case shows that vexatious litigation has been an ongoing problem with these users. I'd rather leave this in and have it be applied with the same judgment and common sense we must use in any other administrative provision. Raymond Arritt (talk) 18:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ongoing problem? Let's look at that. Vexatious litigation is a "frivilous" complaint meant solely to remove an opponent, and here that's being defined as a disruption worthy of blocking. That's odd, because the whole purpose of the arbitration committee, and the arbitration enforcement page, is for people to come and complain about their opponent civily and seek remedy, presumably to have that opponent sanctioned for their actions. Again, calling that frivilous is incompatible with also treating dispute resolution seriously. This proposal criminalizes normal dispute resolution processes, with the possibility of blocking, and instead leaves the interpretation of what's frivilous up to any random admin. I have a problem with that. Namely because I was the one who pointed out that ScienceApologist has a history of being incivil in this very arbitration. I posted diffs stating that he was warned for incivility before, and then posted diffs showing that he continued doing so. In the arbitration I was accused by other editors, I think even an admin, of doing all of that just to support Martinphi. By this definition and remedy, apparently I was being frivilous and should be blocked because at least one admin thought I was frivilous. What common sense is there in that? The dispute resolution process is supposed to be about showing evidence of problems in opponents. It's probably for that reason that vexation litigation isn't in WP:DE, WP:DR, WP:HARASS or any other guideline that I'm aware of. When you have what you feel is a legitimate complaint you're supposed to take it to an authority who can help you. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If the vexatious litigation clause were left in, it would be subject to the same admin discretion as the other remedies, plus could be appealable. Plus. if someone who had cried wolf too many times then had a legit complaint, he could ask and admin to review it and, if legit, the admin could temporarily lift the restriction. I'd rather not have to write that level of detail into a remedy that should be interpretable with common sense, but maybe it should be specified. Eh. Thatcher 19:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It would probably help if you established a basis for including it first before adding detail on how to interpret it. So far I've only seen people file complaints for what they believe are legitimate complaints. It's not been established that any complaint has been raised in bad faith. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I understand it's hard to keep up with everything, but for what it's worth, several notices have been filed here, at ArbEnforcement, on the Admin Noticeboard, and elsewhere. I think there's a reasonable basis for this vexatious litigation element, and I'd be willing to go through the effort of compiling links to different filings if you haven't seen them. That said, I am OK with whatever, if anything, the Arbitrators decide. Antelan ^talk 20:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

A list doesn't demonstrate bad faith is my point. All the filings against ScienceApologist could be in the list, his filings against Martinphi could be as well, it could include filings that I'm not aware of, and the list would still not demonstrate that the intent was anything other than to resolve what they felt was legitimate disruptive editing. Filing complaints is not bad faith, nor is it disruptive (as this proposal suggests) especially when everywhere you turn it's what's encouraged instead of being disruptive. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Isn't "vexatious litigation" a self-correcting problem? Because anyone who brings (for example) a request for arbitration, becomes subject to that arbitration... I'd also like to note that this whole matter of "vexatious litigation" really seems to be a veiled reference to Martinphi's request above - which is in its essence, no different from the one we are commenting on here, except that it was brought by an involved party, and was therefore couched in more one-sided terms. Dlabtot (talk) 19:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Besides the built-in self-correcting mechanism, don't admin already have tools to deal with vexing complaints? Anthon01 (talk) 05:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be helpful if editors can show us something which they considered to be vexatious litigation against ScienceApologist or Martinphi and explained to us exactly why they feel this way. Right now, I don't know how admins could draw the line if we as a community don't identify exactly where that line lies. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Please. We weren't born yesterday. This was pointed out in the latest of many postings to the ArbCom enforcement page, and you were involved in that discussion. This situation is characterised by entrenched positions. There are more editors pushing the pseudo / fringe POV on most of those articles, and the pro-mainstream POV is a lot closer to NPOV. No attempt has been made by either party to work with the other, and there is a constant attempt by the pseudo and fringe side to continually redraw a new average between the current article content and their POV, a creeping fallacy of false middle. The repeated postings to the arbcom enforcement page are as close to harassment as makes no difference, and it needs to stop. Guy (Help!) 21:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

That didn't even come near to answering my question. What I am looking for is an example of what editors considered to be vexatious litigation against ScienceApologist or Martinphi and an explanation. What I am not looking for is hostility. You talk about parties coming together to work, but all I see to get from you is grief. All the time. Again, all I was asking for is an example and an explanation. Just provide a link and a rationale. That's all. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 04:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I think your inability to see the problem speaks volumes. Guy (Help!) 20:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

And your hostility speaks tomes. All I am asking for is a simple example so I know what is meant by vexatious litigation. Again, all I am getting is grief from you. Please check your attitude. Now then, you say that you dealt with "vexatious litigation" recently in an ArbCom enforcement in which I was involved. Can you please point me to it because I don't recall such a thing? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I am hostile to people who are trying to leverage an ArbCom finding into a ban on one of the few people on this project with the determination and knowledge to resist the blatant abuse perpetrated by fans of the paranormal. In fact, if it were left to me, I would simply ban such people from all articles on these topics, as they consistently show a complete inability to follow policy. SA is more patient than that. But he can still be provoked, and the repeated vexatious abuse of process against him is one of the ways he is being provoked. Solution: stop doing it, and start working with him and throwing your weight behind policy. Unless you, too, are unable to resist the temptation to rewrite articles in the pretence that supposed paranormal powers have any kind of objective reality. You could start by helping us rid the project of Ilena's meatpuppet Anthon01, whose actions on and around Quackwatch are in clear defiance of the ban on Ilena and whose tendentious editing is becoming increasingly blatant. Guy (Help!) 17:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it is quite telling when he receives awards and is encouraged and enabled in his disruptive behavior, spamming pages, tendentitious argumentation, etc.--Filll (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone should take a moment of reflection here - there are people who are compensated to cast doubt on modern science - they are professional PR individuals. There are no individuals compensated to set the record straight - those people are required to be volunteers who love knowledge. This is a real and substantial problem, and it resonates throughout this project. The difference between the two is obvious and readily transparent. PouponOnToast (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

As a pure volunteer myself, it could easily be viewed in the opposite way, with a strong financial interest of pharmaceutical interests versus alternative medicine practices that rely on no patented methods. I think there are a wide mix of editors from every perspective, and assuming good faith is the best policy. —Whig (talk) 22:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)