Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Shakespeare authorship question/Workshop

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This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. The Arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. The bottom of the page may be used for overall analysis of the /Evidence and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

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1) Comment by AlexPope I hope this is the right place to express my dismay over the direction that Wikipedia articles about the authorship question are taking. Any article about this subject seems to be under attack. I first got involved when I read a Wikipedia article that requested citations. I spent the better part of one day looking up the citations, thinking I was making a good and valuable contribution to Wikipedia. To my great surprise, all my efforts were erased by the Stratfordian editors who seem to be using the authorship entry to debate the topic rather than to define it. I made reference to Charlton Ogburn, Jr., whose seminal work, published by Dodd Mead and Co. in 1984, had analyzed the authorship question thoroughly, showing profound knowledge of Shakespeare's works. He devoted a section to the candidate traditionally assumed to be the author, pointing out the reasons why so many distinguished authors and critics over the past two centuries had doubted that the Stratford businessman was the same person as the author of the plays and poetry. The Stratfordian editors dismissed Ogburn's very scholarly work as not being acceptably mainstream. Well, DUH! He was dealing with a controversial issue from a fresh perspective, so of course he did not merely repeat the conventional assumptions, but questioned them. It is unconscionable to delete references to Ogburn, who has far greater credibility on this issue than a person who is already convinced that nothing more can be learned about Shakespeare by re-examining the assumptions that have turned the Bard into an idol. I made a few other corrections and clarifications, but I grew tired of the contempt, especially toward Smatprt, whose editing seemed very knowledgeable and fair. Here is an example of the ad hominem attacks that have made me doubt the intentions of the editors who have driven out moderate voices by their blatant insistence that only the traditional views deserve to be heard. for example,This remark from the workshop sounds very hostile to me: "It took 3 or 4 years to liberate the "authorship question" from the cold dead hand of the civil POV-pusher Smatprt, something that the joined forces of the community and LHvU have now finally accomplished (for one year only, though; S will be back)" Now I see that the lead into the authorship item denigrates the scholars who disagree with them, using such snide assertions as "a small but vocal and visible group" and "fringe theory". One article even claims that anti-Stratfordians do not use the documentary evidence that Stratfordians do. That is totally false and prejudicial. Now I see that they are vandalizing any article that mentions Edward de Vere, who seems to be the candidate they love to hate. I don't have time for extended argument, although I do love Shakespeare and hate to see the malicious discrediting of sincere Shakespeare lovers who have an honest disagreement over the nature of this most admirable of writers. ~Alexpope

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Proposed final decision

Proposals by User:NinaGreen

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Moratorium and administrator supervision order

1) I see that the purpose of arbitration is to "break the back of the dispute". I also see that there is a Workshop page on which parties can submit proposals, and I'd like to submit one which I think would go some way toward breaking the back of the dispute. What I'd like to suggest is that the arbitrators impose a three-month moratorium on editing of the SAQ article and all other articles related to the authorship controversy as a cooling off period, and that they appoint a very experienced and unbiased administrator (or administrators) to look over the proliferation of articles on the authorship controversy with a view to recommending which ones should be deleted. The SAQ article is part of the Wikipedia Alternative Views Project, but many articles have been hived off from it as it grew like Topsy, and have become independent main articles which are not covered by the Wikipedia Alternative Views Project. The SAQ article itself contains links to seven of these independent main articles. There is thus an overwhelming amount of duplication, and the authorship controversy has far more coverage in Wikipedia than the subject warrants. I tried to bring this duplication and proliferation of articles up as a matter of discussion on the SAQ Talk page, but was shut down by Tom Reedy and Nishidani. I would also like to second the suggestion made by one editor on the Request for Arbitration page that there are WP:BATTLE aspects to the current situation because of a lack of understanding of WP:NPOV and WP:CONSENSUS. With respect to the former, what needs to be clarified by the arbitrators or the independent administrators appointed by them is whether editors who have overtly expressed bias with respect to the authorship controversy should be able to WP:OWN own the SAQ article, and prevent any edits from taking place without their express sanction. I've already mentioned Tom Reedy and Nishidani's ownership of the article and their overt expressions of bias ('a crank theory'[1], 'this ideological mania'[2]) in my statement on the Request for Arbitration page, bias which Tom continues to display on the SAQ Talk page without any intervention by administrators even as this arbitration is ongoing ('I'd like to hear from some sane Oxfordians')[3]. With respect to the latter issue, i.e. WP:CONSENSUS, it's clear that Oxfordian editors are vastly outnumbered by Stratfordian editors, and thus consensus is always against any edit proposed by an Oxfordian editor. And as soon as an Oxfordian editor appears on the scene, there is an immediate attempt to find him/her in infraction of any number of Wikipedia policies and rules (often due to inexperience), and a case is immediately built against that editor with the intent of having him/her banned, with the two administrators who are involved with the SAQ article playing an active role in building that case, as is evident from statements on the Request for Arbitration page. To summarize, I think the arbitrators could "break the back of the case" by imposing a three-month moratorium on editing as a cooling-off period, by appointing an experienced and unbiased administrator to assess the proliferation of articles which has taken place outside the Wikipedia Alternative Views Project, and by addressing the issue of whether editors who have openly admitted bias with respect to the authorship controversy (as opposed to disagreement, which is an entirely different thing) should be permitted to own the SAQ article and other articles concerning the authorship controversy, and whether administrators who openly favour one side against the other should be replaced by administrators who are willing to deal with each side impartially. NinaGreen (talk) 02:44, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

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A "three-month moratorium" on editing this article (or any article other than perhaps a repeatedly-deleted non-notable BLP) is not going to happen. Attention from more administrators and other experienced editors, on the other hand, would be a fine thing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

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Clerk note: Posted here on behalf of, and by e-mail request from, NinaGreen. The section header was formed by myself, not by Nina; all other content is an exact copy of her proposal. AGK [•] 18:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Note to clerk: AGK, there are diff notes in that proposal, mainly giving the provenance of quotes and such. The manner of copypasting the proposal here has killed those notes, which seems disadvantageous to Nina. Even if you received the proposal exactly like that by e-mail, you could perhaps keep the diffs clickable by using the edit mode version of the copy on her talkpage instead? (I'm assuming the wording is the same.) Bishonen | talk 01:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC).

Ah, I hadn't realised that there were diffs to be included; they (obviously) weren't part of the e-mail version that Nina sent me. I've added the diffs in. AGK [•] 14:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

And I hadn't realised that two out of three of them aren't useful (pointing to respectively a whole archive and a whole talkpage). Still, the effort was made. Bishonen | talk 17:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC).

Note to clerk: AGK, did you ask Nina if you could change her official statement? Cleaning up the diffs was one thing, but I see you added excerpts from her (longer) talk page posting as well. Her official posting looked to me like an edited version that she had cleaned up herself. I think it would be appropriate to check with Nina on this. It's a shame she can't edit herself. I too find it odd that she was blocked from editing as soon as the case was announced. LessHeard had the same thought and he was the case filer. Smatprt (talk) 23:54, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Smatprt? You're topic banned from this stuff, what are you doing here? I do see AGK sent you the usual template about contributing to the workshop and such, but I suppose he just sent those to all the people on the "Involved parties" list. (Well, not to me, actually... where's the justice?) Anyway. Have you requested an unban from ArbCom for the purpose of taking part in this case? Bishonen | talk 00:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC).

Proposals by User:Y

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Analysis of evidence

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General discussion

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