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

Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

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

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

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

Purpose of the workshop

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Expected standards of behavior

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

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

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

Motions and requests by the parties

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by S Marshall

Proposed principles

Citing sources

1a) Under Wikipedia's verifiability policy, editors are expected to add citations. The purpose of a citation is to help readers and other editors verify that the information in Wikipedia articles is based on reliable sources. A good citation is one that directs the reader to a specific place in a reliable source that fully supports the article text.

1b) A citation is poor if it doesn't direct the reader to a specific place, or if the source isn't reliable, or if the source doesn't fully support the article text.

1c) Good citations are important everywhere that appears on a rendered page in the mainspace, but particularly important in contentious topic areas.

1d) Poor citations make needless work for other editors. Frequently adding poor citations can amount to misconduct.

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I looked in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles for a pre-existing principle that says this, but I didn't see one, so I wrote this from scratch.—S Marshall T/C 17:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

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Mala fide

2a) Sockpuppetry ought to fail.

2b) If we allow socking to influence our decisions, we're creating an incentive to sock. This is not in the encyclopaedia's interests

2c) Where a sockpuppet has waged a sustained campaign to achieve an end, make a change, or sanction or unsanction a user, that campaign should come to nothing.

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A second novel principle. I'm dividing these up into subparagraphs for convenience -- so for example someone could say "I support 2a and 2b but object to 2c" -- but I intend these, if accepted, to be condensed to conventional one paragraph Arbcom principles.—S Marshall T/C 08:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Poor quality citations

1) The person operating accounts including User:WMrapids ("the WMrapids sockmaster") introduced poor-quality citations into articles about Venezuela's politics and recent history. Issues with these citations included imprecision (i.e. where it took a lot of work to find the original citation), mistranslation (SandyGeorgia's evidence), and misrepresentation by selective use of the source (SandyGeorgia's evidence).

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Sockpuppetry

2a) The WMrapids sockmaster acted to skew Wikipedia's coverage of Venezuelan politics and recent history towards a stance that favours Nicolás Maduro.

2b) Their method was firstly, to edit articles directly; secondly, to engage in civil POV-pushing and sealioning in talk-space and project-space; and thirdly, to seek to topic-ban or sanction users who disfavoured Nicolás Maduro.

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(2a) There is no evidence to support this conclusion that the use of a sock to negatively influence Venezuelan politics. Only evidence that a sock existed. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

(2b) You said topic ban user(s). He tried to topic-ban and sanction one user NoonIcarus, who was rightfully topic-banned by the community for his behavior. Who else?

(2a) and (2b) The articles are already biased against Maduro focusing primarily on anti-Maduro, pro-opposition and pro-Guaido sources and material and by the elimination of sources sympathetic to Chavez and Maduro's goals of the Bolivarian Revolution to free Venezuela from U.S. domination (Monroe Doctrine) and shift the economy to be more socialist and less neoliberal. The animosity of the U.S. to the democratic election of Chavez and Maduro was almost immediate and continuous regardless of Democrat or Republican control of administration or Congress echoed by the U.S. and Western mainstream media and support for the opposition all along, especially Juan Guaido. WMRapids was correct to balance the articles against the bias introduced aggressively by editors like NoonIcarus, who is shown to be closely associated with the opposition (considering he images posted to Wikimedia) and was part of the edit-war to proclaim Juan Guaido the President of Venezuela on Spanish Wikipedia. WMrapids was trying to make the article more WP:NPOV with heavy opposition by NoonIcarus.

WMrapids obviously made mistakes, became overly frustrated and inappropriately lashed out, but they were far less detrimental than NoonIcarus's long-term years of behavior to eliminate certain material that portrayed the opposition negatively or socialism in Latin America positively. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Campaign to sanction

3a) The WMrapids sockmaster took a lead role in at least ten noticeboard threads aimed or partially aimed at topic-banning or sanctioning NoonIcarus, amounting to a sustained campaign to topic ban NoonIcarus. They persistently proposed topic bans, and were often the first person in the thread to do so (Vanamonde93's preliminary statement).

3b) Most of these threads were archived without result. In the latest of these threads, S Marshall intervened, using {{dnau}} to prevent premature archiving.

3c) The outcome of the thread was to topic ban NoonIcarus. This outcome reflected the view of several good faith users, but it was also affected by S Marshall's unusual intervention, and unrelated circumstances that prevented NoonIcarus' usual defenders from participating to the full, and the exceptional persistence of the WMrapids sockmaster.

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The fact that I'm partially resposible for NoonIcarus' topic ban is a strong motivator for me. If I hadn't used DNAU in the way I did, that thread would have been archived without closure. And the outcome was unjust. It was vastly out of proportion to the diffs. A sanction should have happened but a topic ban was wildly excessive. I hate that outcome and I really do feel the need to correct it.—S Marshall T/C 10:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

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Proposals by User:David Tornheim

Proposed principles

Use Reliable Sources

1) Editors should follow WP:RS which states: "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." (See WP:SCHOLARSHIP) These are preferable to mainstream media and news reports by journalists. Mainstream sources covering Venezuelan politics are susceptible to propaganda. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:57, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Attribution

2) Attribution is important for Venezuelan politics. WP:RS states:

[R]eliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

Common sources of bias include political...beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate, as in "The feminist Betty Friedan wrote that..."; "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff..."; or "The conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...".

See WP:BIASED. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:55, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Neither party can edit in the topic area

1) NoonIcarus was topic-banned from the topic area by the community in this AN/I thread on 2 April 2024. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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2) WMrapids was indefinitely blocked on 11 April 2024. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

No remedy necessary

1) None necessary. This case can be closed without further action. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposed enforcement

No enforcement necessary

1) None necessary. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:14, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Example 3

Proposed principles

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Analysis of WMrapids's evidence by Robert McClenon

It appears that User:WMrapids is "slightly opposing" the designation of Venezuelan politics as a contentious topic based on a reasonably mistaken understanding of what is an essential feature and what is an optional feature of the contentious topics procedures. WMRapids writes: CT would prevent involvement from our necessary, newly-interested users. They are probably thinking of the application of contentious topics to Palestine and Israel, which is even more difficult than other contentious topics. Palestine and Israel articles are subject to Extended-Confirmed protection, which excludes new users, in order to prevent brigading and sockpuppetry. The Extended-Confirmed protection is not a built-in or automatic feature of contentious topics, but an optional feature that is necessary for an area that is even more problematic than Venezuelan politics. What the contentious topics designation would do is to authorize disruptive editing to be dealt with by Arbitration Enforcement. New users should be able to participate, as long as they are here to improve the encyclopedia, and as long as they honor neutral point of view.

I recommend that ArbCom designate Venezuelan politics as a contentious topic, so as to enable Arbitration Enforcement, without imposing extended-confirmed protection. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

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Moved from the evidence page --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

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Analysis by S Marshall

The view from 30,000 feet is this:

Although NoonIcarus is miscalled a "pro-opposition" editor in various places, in fact on Venezuela his position is actually anti-Maduro. WMrapids, or (now we know WMrapids is a sock) more accurately the person running the WMrapids account, is strongly pro-Maduro. Many other people editing Venezuelan articles are generally tolerant of Maduro, but usually less so than WMrapids. I think this underlies the annoyance at NoonIcarus.

Mainstream news sources in first world democracies converge on a position that's generally skeptical towards Maduro, although far less skeptical than NoonIcarus. Scholars and academics tend generally to be somewhat more pro-Maduro than the news sources.

The person running the WMrapids account is adept at civil POV-pushing and sealioning. They're able to advance their agenda within Wikipedia's behavioural constraints. NoonIcarus is less so, and NoonIcarus takes the bait, so some kind of editing restriction on him is definitely beneficial -- but we do benefit from skeptical eyes on our coverage of recent Venezuelan politics. It's definitely in the encyclopaedia's best interests to allow NoonIcarus to wave the red flag when there's bias.

Indications on my talk page suggest that the person running the WMrapids account is unlikely to go away just because that one account got CU-blocked.

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No, Boynamedsue, I've clearly acknowledged that NoonIcarus has an angle. In the evidence phase I showed that 0RR is effective in managing NoonIcarus' behaviour.—S Marshall T/C 07:55, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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I feel this ignores the strong evidence of consistent surreptitious deletion of sourced content in order to introduce POV by Noonicarus. Noonicarus has not acknowledged any fault in the content of their editing, and, if their block is rescinded, they will continue their political work on wikipedia.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:42, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

ORR would require someone to constantly follow Noonicarus around to ensure they are not POV-pushing and deleting sourced content as they have done up to now. Seems an unreasonably labour intensive solution to a problem that has already been solved.Boynamedsue (talk) 09:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence and situation by David Tornheim

The original AN/I solved the problem of NoonIcarus's editing by a community decision. Now that WMRapids has been blocked, no further action is necessary. I suggest closing this with no action, but in the event that WMRapids is unblocked, the evidence provided against him/her could be re-opened.

I see no need for general sanctions. The evidence is almost entirely focussed on only these two editors. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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This is also my view, though I don't have any opposition in principle to general sanctions on Venezuela, I do not see the need.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

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General discussion

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