Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology/Workshop

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

Motion to openly discuss Cirt's past identity

1) Cirt's behavior in the Scientology-series articles is one of the linchpins of this case. Cirt can be accused of taking WP:OWNership of the series to a perhaps unprecedented level. No discussion of Cirt can be complete without reference to his previous identity as he seamlessly carried on editing in the same articles, with the same POV, and, arguably, with the same tactics in his new identity as he did in his old. His previous identity has already been specifically named in various locations and comments at his WP:RFAR indicated that editors unfamiliar with his history had no trouble divining his previous identity - it is an open "secret". Little is gained by continuing to cloud his past except that a confirmed POV-warrior gets a whitewash. It is not my intent to bring up a bunch of unrelated material from his previous identity but I think that those trying to show a pattern in Cirt's behavior should be allowed to show the complete pattern. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Is there some reason why this would not ordinarily be permitted? Kirill ^(prof) 02:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Everyone already knows, so it's irrelevant. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

The security matter has been resolved. My previous account was Smee, renamed from Smeelgova. Discuss them if you like. Cirt (talk) 20:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

You "forgot" one of your other user names, minimum. Please provide a full list. Misou (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

On Wikipedia I have edited exclusively as Cirt for over a year. At sister Wikimedia projects I used to edit under other usernames but have consolidated those accounts as Cirt. If you think there's some action pertinent to this case under a previous username, I'd be glad to confirm whether the account is me or not. It's been many months since I've edited as anything else. Cirt (talk) 04:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt is a distraction here. Some of his edits and arguments should be brought up at WP:RS/N, and that's about it. His involvement has been a net benefit to Wikipedia. With his apparent blessings above, I see no need to suppress his prior account's editing history, but it's moot. --GoodDamon 21:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt is not a distraction and to say that marginalizes the editors that are in the process of presenting evidence. The Shutterbug issue and the Cirt issue are not related other than by the fact that they both relate to the Scientology articles and both fall under the decision of the COFS arb in one way or another. They were presented at WP:AE as unrelated issues. Durova concatenated them when opening this arbitration and the arbitrators agreed to take this case without limiting Durova's scope. I am sure that the arbitrators can manage to deal with both aspects of the case without getting unduly distracted. --Justallofthem (talk) 23:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

GoodDamon is obviously trying to make this ArbCom an anti-scientology issue. Misou (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you really do believe that, but it's not true. I am personally neutral on Scientology. To me, the belief system is simultaneously very bizarre and very interesting, and I think it's fascinating to watch a thoroughly modern religion form and go through its growing pains. It's one of the things that draws me to the Scientology pages here. There is one thing I am not neutral on: Abuse of Wikipedia itself to push an agenda. Look... If I were some anti-Scientology uber-critic, I would be pushing for inclusion of links to xenu.net and trying to make the Scientology article nothing but attacks on its subject. I have been, and continue to be, against that. Primary sources, self-published articles, shoddy opinion pieces... All should go. But I cannot and should not be expected to do that work and simultaneously put up with POV-pushing, single-purpose accounts that edit from the Church of Scientology. --GoodDamon 05:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Motion to undelete Cirt's past accounts' talk pages

2) Motion to undelete Cirt's past accounts talk pages, with the proviso that prior to the undeletion, any text that may disclose Cirt's identity are kept deleted. This, to afford editors full transparency in these proceedings. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't see how the talk pages of accounts which have not been used in over a year would be relevant here. Is it expected that there might be comments which would have some bearing on the present matter? Kirill ^(prof) 04:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe there's no relevance here. We are in the business of dealing with current issues, not old history. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

They aren't relevant. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support -- it's considerably more difficult to determine whether Cirt engaged in any WP:BLP violations with his prior accounts in the absence of the talk page histories. John254 04:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

ns1.Scientology.org confirmed socks are banned

3) See: Jpgordon Checkuser confirmation, and with this additional evidence here, these users are banned for abuse of role accounts, sockpuppetry, and disruption of Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

See: Jpgordon Checkuser confirmation of technical sockpuppetry. This should be processed by the Arbs rather than AE noise as it's a previous issue as Jpgordon noted from the last instances of abuse and the previous RFAR. rootology (C)(T) 04:38, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

This would be something to be voted upon in the final decision, not as a "temporary" injunction, which would cease to be in effect at the end of the case. Daniel (talk) 05:39, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed temporary injunctions

User:David Gerard suspended from ArbCom mailing list for duration of case

1) I move that David Gerard be suspended from the Arbitration Committee mailing list for the duration of this case. As maintainer of an anti-Scientology Web site, I think it is clear he cannot be impartial regarding Scientology-related issues. His participation on the private mailing list would cast a pall over any Committee findings and involve the appearance of impropriety. *** Crotalus *** 19:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

This is certainly unprecedented, and somewhat irrelevant to boot: we have a private list for the sitting arbitrators, to which David is obviously not subscribed. Kirill ^(prof) 02:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

We don't do this. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 06:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This would be a new precedent, if accepted. Charles Matthews did not recuse from the ArbCom list during Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman, for example, despite being the initiator of the RFAR and a named party. Not sure where I stand on this. Crolatus, could you articulate more clearly under what circumstances you believe recusal from the ArbCom mailing list would be appropriate during a case? And would you consider an alternate solution in which a temporary ArbCom list were created for purposes of discussing a particular case, so that a person who has COI in one case could continue to provide useful input on unrelated matters? Durova^Charge! 20:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

You've got a point, Crotalus. I think what Kirill is saying is the Committee already has a list where David Gerard doesn't have access, so that makes this proposal redundant. Durova^Charge! 22:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I don't see why this is so controversial. People with a strong stake in one side of an issue shouldn't be involved in confidential deliberations over that issue which are supposed to be conducted in an impartial manner. I'm certainly not saying that anyone with an opinion on the matter has to recuse themselves. But if someone's opinions are strongly enough held that they have spent years running a web site pushing one side of the issue, that's a good indicator that they probably can't set those feelings aside no matter how hard they try. If this is truly unprecedented, it says something unfortunate about the ethics of ArbCom, and may be a good indication of why its prestige among the Wikipedia community is at a nadir. *** Crotalus *** 15:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to Morven: I can't think of any other context in which this sort of thing would be ethically acceptable. People with a strong bias/POV/COI on a particular issue should not be involved in confidential ex parte communication with arbitrators or judges who are supposed to be deciding that issue in an impartial manner. *** Crotalus *** 18:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Decorum on the RFAR pages

2) All parties are reminded that WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, etc. apply on arbitration pages as much as (if not more than) on the rest of Wikipedia. Any user breaching any of these policies may be blocked for up to 24 hours by any uninvolved administrator.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Proposed. I wouldn't normally recommend this, but there are so many entrenched points of view and vested interests that this would be useful. Stifle (talk) 10:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Not sure this is necessary; I've seen some heated debate but no serious incivility so far. Perhaps I've overlooked something. *** Crotalus *** 15:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed final decision

Proposals by John254

Proposed principles

Administrators

1) Administrators are expected to understand and enforce the requirements of the biographies of living persons policy. Administrators who engage in serious violations of this policy may be desysopped.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Don't we normally wait a reasonable length of time for Wikipedians to defend themselves first before proposing something this extreme? The case has been open less than 24 hours. Durova^Charge! 21:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. John254 21:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Durova: on the contrary, it's useful to write proposals here based on the evidence presented so far, to inform parties to the case of what they have "to defend themselves" against -- of what principles might be applied, and what conclusions drawn, in the absence of any defense. John254 21:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

For over a year I have spoken out against over-hasty conclusions at arbitration. When Wikipedians are informed of an arbitration case they are requested to allow one week for evidence presentation. Please keep an open mind. Respectfully, Durova^Charge! 22:26, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that the arbitrators will allow a minimum of one week before introducing any findings and remedies at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology/Proposed decision. Other editors, posting in this workshop, are under no such restriction. John254 22:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As a friendly suggestion, your your own credibility could be more at issue than his with over-hasty proposals. Really, if there's nothing to be said for Cirt six days from now then the same proposals would carry greater weight. If there is more to be said for him, then you might regret such strong proposals. The definition of prejudice is to reach a conclusion before seeing enough evidence. Nothing personal: I said as much to Mackensen and TheBainer here. Earnestly, Durova^Charge! 00:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP violations by OTRS members

2) WP:BLP violations by OTRS members are considered to be especially egregious misconduct, since many users will presume the correctness of WP:BLP actions by editors who display the OTRS userbox, even when no OTRS ticket number is cited in the edits. While the removal of OTRS membership is outside the remit of the Arbitration Committee, the Committee can revoke OTRS members' editing privileges to prevent them from exercising an air of OTRS authority on the English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Cirt's connection with OTRS appears to me so far to be irrelevant to this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed, since Cirt used a blog to make a highly controversial claim concerning a living person [1], then used tabloid-sourced gossip to support similarly controversial information [2], and, despite sometimes vociferous protestations to the contrary [3], did actually edit-war the tabloid-sourced gossip back into the article [4]. If the police are robbing your house, then who can you call? John254 01:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

There are many Wikimedians on OTRS who have no experience with dealing with BLP's and don't have access to any BLP-related queues. You seem to overlook this fact in your ridiculous wide-sweeping "principle" above. Daniel (talk) 06:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the internal operations of OTRS, of course, but neither are most other editors. This principle relates to how the OTRS is viewed: because of the extent to which OTRS members are actually responsible for remedying WP:BLP problems, they are widely regarded as the "BLP police", such that the correctness of their actions in this regard is often assumed. John254 15:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Daniel, above. Furthermore, Cirt has never used his involvement in OTRS to abuse his editing privileges. While the OTRS Admins and the Volunteer Coordinator have a great deal of respect for the Arbitration Committee, and have listened to its opinion and that of its members as a whole, any inclusion of OTRS in this is absurd. Bastique ^demandez 16:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Indeed, some OTRS members revel in the extent to which their WP:BLP-related actions are assumed to be correct: [5] [6]. Only when an OTRS member has made edits that are indefensible under the biographies of living persons policy would some editors adopt the fiction that OTRS members are treated the same as everyone else, that users would be just as willing to revert WP:BLP violations by Cirt as those committed by an ordinary editor. John254 05:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

A presumption of deference, at least in the short-term, to OTRS participants may apply when the OTRS member removes problematic BLP conduct. But OTRS still has little or nothing to do with this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Violations of Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources can cause real harm to real people

3) Edits to a biography are visible immediately, and may, to the extent that they are poorly sourced and potentially false, cause harm to the subject of an article from the moment of their implementation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Proposed, using language shamelessly borrowed from an editor supporting Cirt [7]. Since articles aren't drafts, WP:BLP violations are no mere technical errors, but are rather serious freaking business. John254 02:41, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Simple mistakes vs. major disruption

4) The degree of impropriety ascribed to an incorrect or editorial administrative action is often directly proportional to the deliberation shown in performing it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Proposed. For instance, deleting the main page once without a summary would be considered a simple mistake, while the same deletion effectuated with the summary "removing unnecessary main page" might constitute grounds for emergency desysopping. If an administrator who deleted the main page on the asserted grounds of inutility continued to claim, during a request for arbitration, that his deletion appeared correct at the time, even if a consensus subsequently formed against it, we would have little confidence in his future administrative acts. It should be considered that Cirt's WP:BLP violations appeared to note the character of the material in question, that Cirt did not self-revert or apologize for the edits at the time, and that, even now, Cirt's own evidence does not appear to acknowledge that any controversial material concerning living persons should have been supported by reliable sources ab initio. John254 03:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Cirt

1) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has added inadequately sourced controversial material concerning living persons to Wikipedia articles on several occasions, in egregious violation of Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Fabricating_material_from_unreliable_source.28s.29, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Cirt_misrepresents_sources, and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Cirt_uses_poor_sources. Particularly, see [8] and [9] in which Cirt uses a blog, and the tabloid magazine New Idea, respectively, to make controversial claims concerning living persons. One of the very sources that Cirt cites in his edit describes New Idea as one of "the celebrity gossip weeklies". Furthermore, Cirt used the tabloid magazine as a source [10] after the conclusion of an RFC as a result of which he conceded that a blog does not constitute a reliable source for the purpose of making controversial claims concerning a living person. John254 21:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As if that weren't bad enough, after a another editor removed Cirt's tabloid-sourced WP:BLP violation, Cirt restored it with a misleading edit summary (the reliable sources expressly described the matter as factually questionable tabloid-sourced gossip). Thus, the claims of editors defending Cirt to the effect that "Cirt didn't edit-war" [11] are blatantly false. John254 01:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt's prior accounts

2) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) was previously User:Smeelgova, an account which was renamed to User:Smee [12]. He was blocked seven times for edit warring largely related to new-age religious groups under both accounts, as chronicled in their block logs [13] [14]. At the time Cirt was granted adminship, he refused to disclose the identities of his prior accounts. Moreover, the deletion of the prior accounts' talk pages [15] [16] served to further conceal Cirt's misconduct at the time of his RFA, even from users who were aware of his prior identity.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This fails to note that at Cirt's RFA his prior block history was fully disclosed, as were the serious harassment concerns that led to the username changes. I provided an offer to supply appropriate details to any editor in good standing who requested them, and referred editors who needed further substantiation to Jimbo Wales. The bureaucrats addressed the matter adequately at RFA closure (which was a solid 80% in support). Cirt received a solid 166 supports at RFA, making him the 19th most popular RFA candidate in site history (in terms of total supports). Durova^Charge! 22:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Now that Cirt has revealed the previous accounts, these accounts' talk pages should be undeleted for transparency in these proceedings. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. John254 22:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to Durova: the fact that Cirt's blocks for edit warring were largely related to articles concerning new-age religious groups similar to the Church of Scientology was not disclosed at his RFA, though it may have affected how his subsequent WP:BLP violations on articles related to the Church of Scientology were treated. John254 22:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt's treatment of our biographies of living persons policy

3) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) continues to treat violations of Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources as ordinary content disputes, not policy violations which administrators should remedy, prevent, and refrain from engaging in themselves, as described in Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material.

Comment by Arbitrators:

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Comment by others:

Proposed, per Cirt's own evidence, in which he states in relevant part that

historically I have started RFCs in order to resolve content disputes, such as here at David Miscavige, later closing the RFC against my own prior position here, deferring to community consensus on the issue as is appropriate after a content-RFC.

John254 01:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Rootology

4) Rootology (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was banned from Wikipedia from September 2006 until May 2008 due to severe personal attacks and other extensive disruption. During the course of this case, Rootology made unreferenced allegations concerning another editor's religious affiliation and/or employer, in violation of WP:NPA and WP:LIBEL personal attacks against another editor on the basis of the latter's alleged religious affiliation and/or employer.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Jossi's connection with Prem Rawat is not in dispute, and mentioning it is not outing. It is, however, utterly irrelevant to this case.

(Needless to say, proposals of this type are not particularly helpful either.) Kirill ^(prof) 05:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed, per [17], Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive68#Right_to_vanish.2C_vandals.2C_and_XP, Special:Undelete/User:Rootology, and [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]. John254 05:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

How exactly is it a LIBEL or outing of anything, when Jossi openly discusses his affiliations with the Prem Rawat religious organization?

"As I have accepted a position in a related organization, I may reduce the level of my involvement in editing articles related to Prem Rawat and organizations that support his work."[23]

He openly acknowledges his engagement with and employment therein. Whats the outing, exactly? That page is linked right in public off his userspace. rootology (C)(T) 05:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You didn't provide the link at the time you made the comment. In any case, your comments amount to an irrelevant personal attack, since the WP:BLP violations by Cirt at issue here didn't relate to Prem Rawat in any way. John254 05:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I will not edit this page again; but your bullying tactics are appalling and Wikipedia is the worse for your behavior. rootology (C)(T) 05:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Kirill: I mentioned the Rawat association in relation this, and because of Jossi's mysterious appearance here, when he had no major involvement in the case, and only to attack Cirt, who he has long had bad blood for, as seen in Cirt's RFA. It was to me an extra level of unhelpful. rootology (C)(T) 05:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"Mysterious"? I agree! Just check my name as a party in this arbitration. (lol!) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said, that's quite irrelevant here. Assuming good faith doesn't suddenly become inapplicable merely because the page has "Requests for arbitration" in its title. Please tone down your comments; tangential accusations of people belonging to cults are unacceptable. Kirill ^(prof) 05:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I will not post here again. I only ask that you act to curb these bullying tactics by some of the people on this page. rootology (C)(T) 05:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Cirt desysopped

1) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s administrative privileges are revoked indefinitely, and may not be restored except by the Arbitration Committee.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Nah. Cirt does good work, as long as it unrelated to the subject of this arbitration or new religious movements, in which it seems he is incapable to restrain himself. Cirt does not seem to have abused the tools, so desysopping may be unwarranted. OTOH, banning from certain articles for a good period of time, will surely protect Cirt from eventually getting to the point in which he harms himself enough that desysopping may be an option. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. John254 21:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose - Sourcing issues that should have been taken to RS/N can still be taken to RS/N. Cirt has been a valuable contributor, and effective admin. Furthermore, he does not even use his admin tools in this area, so it is inapplicable. --GoodDamon 22:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material provides high sourcing requirements for controversial information concerning living persons, extraordinary remedies for the removal of the offending material, and severe administrative sanctions for editors who violate the provision. The breach of this particular clause of the biographies of living persons policy is a far more serious offense than ordinary "poor sourcing" unrelated to any particular living people. The importance of the biographies of living persons policy is such that we should not countenance administrators seriously and repeatedly violating it. Moreover, when Cirt's request for adminship was approved, he refused to disclose the identities of his prior accounts and requested the deletion of the accounts' talk pages [24] [25], thereby hiding the fact that his seven prior blocks for edit warring [26] [27] related to new-age religious groups similar to the Church of Scientology. John254 22:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, first, I think Durova pretty much laid the Smee thing to rest. It's over, it's done with, it's got the Jimbo Wales stamp of approval. Secondly, I took a look at your diffs for proving BLP violation, and I'm afraid I don't see it. I'm not saying it's not there -- perhaps my eyes need to be checked -- but could you please spell out where the BLP violation is? --GoodDamon 23:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

It's adequately explained in my comment concerning the proposed finding of fact above. Do you contend that blogs and tabloid magazines are actually good reliable sources for making controversial claims concerning living people, or that Cirt was not fully informed of the problems with blogs before he resorted to a tabloid magazine for this purpose? John254 23:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Even if Cirt did inadvertantly or mistakenly use weak sourcing, on a BLP, on what basis does that warrant desysopping someone in this extra-rigid manner? Are you honestly saying Cirt is on the level of, say, User:Archtransit? rootology (C)(T) 23:19, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

If evidence of Cirt's repeated WP:BLP violations had been available at his request for adminship, it almost certainly would not have passed: the evidence clearly establishes that the edits constituting the WP:BLP violations were deliberate, even if not intended as violations of the policy, and were not merely the product of a simple mistake such as an incorrect mouse-click. Cirt either introduced the offending material himself, without subsequently providing better sources, or restored it, noting its character in the edit summary. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the WP:BLP violations indicate that Cirt either does not understand, or is deliberately disregarding, our Biographies of living persons policy. Whichever may be the case, neither condition is acceptable for an administrator. John254 23:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Hold it--you just crossed a line. You need to put up evidence of "Cirt's repeated WP:BLP violations". Two instances that are at best borderline and were after Cirt's successful, community-mandated RFA. Are you implying that Cirt had some historic history of BLP violations that predated his RFA? If not, your poisoning the well can be seen as a personal attack, or at the least disruptive of the RFAR process. rootology (C)(T) 23:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As described here, Cirt engaged in two WP:BLP violations, the second after being informed that his first violation was unacceptable, thus justifying the use of the phrase "Cirt's repeated WP:BLP violations". John254 00:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Why are you engaging in such incredible and mean-spirited (even vicious) spin? You specifically wrote,

"If evidence of Cirt's repeated WP:BLP violations had been available at his request for adminship, it almost certainly would not have passed: the evidence clearly establishes that the edits constituting the WP:BLP violations were deliberate"

All of this was AFTER the community gave Cirt a successful RFA. Did Cirt do something to you on the User:John254 username, or another username, in the past, or do you have the luxury of a time machine? Because your arguments make no sense at all now. rootology (C)(T) 00:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

My statement "If evidence of Cirt's repeated WP:BLP violations had been available at his request for adminship, it almost certainly would not have passed..." is hypothetical; obviously evidence of the WP:BLP violations wasn't available at Cirt's request for adminship because he hadn't engaged in the violations yet. Nonetheless, had he engaged in the violations prior to the request for adminship, and were the evidence thus available, the RFA (already controversial) likely would not have passed. John254 00:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

By your own admission, your entire odd platform here comes down to hypotheticals then. An admin in good standing is accused of maybe inserting two BLP violations--possibly borderline ones at that--and then deferring to community wisdom on them. This admin didn't edit war, didn't act incivil, didn't even use admin tools within a hundred leagues of the Scientology articles--but you want to deadmin them extra firm so that only the Arbitration Committee can undo the deadminning, with the extra gravy of a 30-day siteban for one of our most prolific Featured Article writers, who also I believe has 1-2 Main Page appearances. Again, why? What on Earth did Cirt do to merit this over the top level of wrath? Its like having the police shoot someone twice because they may or may not have ran a red light. rootology (C)(T) 00:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is just plain mean and vindictive, and unsupported by any evidence of misuse of admin tools that warrant making someone an unperson administratively. rootology (C)(T) 23:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous. No substantial evidence has been presented that Cirt misused his administrative tools. Also, why the difference from the usual standard permitting either an appeal or an RFA to restore? Stifle (talk) 10:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose without qualifications or reservations. I haven't been around much lately, but in the time I was more active I never had any reason to think of Cirt as being anything other than one of our best editors as well as someone who has tried very hard to be objective and impartial. Nothing I have seen on the pages of this RfA give me any cause to think that this has changed recently. Individual concerns about BLP and other RS matters would reasonably be raised on those pages, rather than made as the basis for what can easily be seen as being a vindictive attempt against one of our best editors. John Carter (talk) 17:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt banned for 30 days

2) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s editing privileges are revoked for a period of 30 days.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. John254 21:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose - This seems merely punitive, and I can't see the reasoning behind it. --GoodDamon 22:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

After being blocked seven times [28] [29] for edit warring largely related to new age religious groups similar to the Church of Scientology, Cirt gained adminship while refusing to disclose the identities of his prior accounts, then proceed to engage in two successive and serious WP:BLP violations on articles related to the Church of Scientology as described above, while his administrative office avoided the imposition of sanctions, since administrators often presume propriety in the conduct of, and show considerable reluctance to block, other sysops. A 30 day ban may be necessary to demonstrate that this sort of disruption will not be tolerated. John254 22:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Vindictive proposal unsupported by precedent or evidence. rootology (C)(T) 23:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Vexatious. Stifle (talk) 10:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt admonished

3) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is admonished to edit in compliance with the biographies of living persons policy, and is warned that future violations may result in the revocation of his editing privileges for an extended period of time. John254 21:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. John254 21:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Weakly opposed - If Cirt is to be admonished for a few poor instances of sourcing, I can provide you literally hundreds of instances of pro-Scientology editors sourcing directly to Church-owned websites. I will change my vote here if this proposal is modified to reflect admonishment in proportion to the use of poor sourcing. --GoodDamon 22:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material provides high sourcing requirements for controversial information concerning living persons, extraordinary remedies for the removal of the offending material, and severe administrative sanctions for editors who violate the provision. The breach of this particular clause of the biographies of living persons policy is a far more serious offense than ordinary "poor sourcing" unrelated to any particular living people. John254 22:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

You keep saying that, so for the record, here is the applicable text from BLP, verbatim:

I see no evidence that Cirt edit-warred over anything, and even proceeded with RfCs in several cases. He may have chosen a few poor sources, but he did not violate this clause of WP:BLP. --GoodDamon 23:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

In one case, Cirt restored the offending material after another editor had removed it, while, in the other, he first introduced the offending material into the article. To editors who aren't wikilawyering, the instruction to

Remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research); or that relies upon self-published sources (unless written by the subject of the BLP; see below) or sources that otherwise fail to meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability.

obviously forbids the introduction of the offending material to the article in the first place. Yet even for editors who insist upon wikilawyering the biographies of living persons policy, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources clearly and expressly proscribes the introduction of inadequately sourced information concerning living people into Wikipedia articles:

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, it may include original research and unverifiable statements, and could lead to libel claims.

Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link (see above).

Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, and blogs as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article (see below). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g., "Jane Smith has suggested..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.

Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases and attributions to anonymous sources. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?

John254 23:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

John, no one is wikilawyering. BLP provides drastic measures as options in cases of edit-warring to insert violations. Cirt didn't edit-war. Cirt introduced material (or restored material deleted by another user), but went with consensus when it was against him. You are free to disagree with Cirt over whether a source is reliable or not -- heck, I certainly do -- but you are not free to impose restrictions on him when he didn't war over that source. Simple test: Did Cirt keep reinserting the material, or did he put in requests for comment, and abide by the results of those requests? If the former, then sure, ban him. But it wasn't the former, it was the latter. BLP does not say "Disagree with the quality of this user's proposed material? Ban him!" --GoodDamon 23:49, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Rather than quoting BLP--Do no harm, see, anyone can do it--how about demonstrating specifically the ongoing serial nature of Cirt's wrongdoing that warrants a monthlong block and perma-deadminning that you're advocating? rootology (C)(T) 23:35, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Admonished for what? Wheres the evidence of serially doing this? If one source is judged by the AC to be weak or dodgy, and wasn't warred over by Cirt, whats there to admonish? "Cirt didn't jump through real-time hoops in this specific instance and used a source that may or may not be great, so is admonished." ? rootology (C)(T) 23:27, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources requires that all controversial information concerning living persons be attributed to reliable sources from the very moment it is introduced into Wikipedia articles. One can't simply add {{refimprove}} to the article and then come back to it later. As described above, Cirt has engaged in serious violations of the policy twice, once after being clearly informed of his prior violation. John254 23:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Your arguments are vexatious and drama-super amplifying in their wording, and you're taking a pointless flamethrower to the fields here. Cirt actually initiated the RFC in the first instance, deferred to the community, and let it be. The sex & scientology topic after it was removed was never re-added after being discussed. The community decides what violates BLP, not John254; and Cirt simply deferred to the wisdom of his peers. Do you have any evidence of ongoing serial malfeasance by the guy? Please list it if you do, because two at best debatable edits based on the POV of the reviewer do not rise to the level of any ongoing "abuse" the warrants taking an admin in good standing out behind the shed for the Steward chopping block. rootology (C)(T) 23:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The biographies of living persons policy is, in the most clear-cut cases, enforced administratively, as described in Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material. If we have, then, an administrator who must repeatedly "[defer] to the wisdom of his peers" even to recognize obvious WP:BLP violations, he should not hold the position. John254 00:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Twice is the new "repeatedly"? If admins are to summarily executed for "two" arguable errors, which are still completely up for debate as errors, are we going to lower the RFA threshold to say 25% support to replenish the loss of admins we're about to see? Also, aren't you the guy that keeps filing frivilous and drama-laden RFARs that don't involve you even though people keep telling you to stop? Does that mean you should be topic-banned from RFARs that don't name you as a party from before the filing? For example, this one? Geese=gander, etc. rootology (C)(T) 00:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between two simple mistakes, and two actions which indicate that an administrator may not understand one of our basic policies. We depend on the judgment of the arbitrators to tell the difference. The fact that Cirt couldn't actually recognize his obviously inappropriate additions of controversial material concerning living people as errors until many other editors informed him of this fact is perhaps more important than the initial addition or restoration of the offending content. Now, if you're going to make an ad hominem argument against me such as "aren't you the guy that keeps filing frivilous and drama-laden RFARs that don't involve you" [30], I could refute your point either of two ways. I could note the percentage of cases that were actually accepted, and that the acceptance or denial of a request for arbitration is much less predictable than the operation of the plain language contained in Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources. Alternatively, I could point out that you were, until recently, indefinitely banned for some pretty extensive disruption. WP:KETTLE, anyone? John254 01:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome to call on my history, as I've never made any secret of it, but calling it "extensive" is a subjective thing to say, as it is if I say you've extensively disrupting RFAR as others have asked you about[31][32]. You're still here on RFAR pages, though, and appear to be a pretty good vandal fighter and stuck around despite having a lot of crap hurled at you, and I'm still here, despite having a lot of crap on and off-wiki hurled at me, and have even managed to start producing featured content myself. And "recently"? Seven months is recent?

My point is simple: we've never deadminned admins for two borderline mistakes, and it would be terribly irresponsible to deadmin a good-standing feature-writing admin who had 166 supports and passed with 79% even after their history of being harassed off-wiki was outed. The fact that Cirt is willing to stick around after taking so much crap and abuse (like you and I!), and has never once been challenged for using any admin tools in an area he's so involved with--Scientology--says reams. You're basically advocating that we discard one of our top featured content writers and admins over utterly borderline issues, that were self-corrected and acknowledged by Cirt himself. There's simply no ground, merit, standing, precedent, or reason to sanction Cirt with your proposals of de-adminning and sitebanning for a month. At all.

Cirt in general should be commended for his restraint and for helping to defend Wikipedia against abusive sockpuppetry and ROLE accounts which are a danger to this website through coordinated attacks against our neutrality. rootology (C)(T) 01:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue is hardly "two borderline mistakes" -- it's one of an administrator who not only violated Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources twice, but insisted, and, as described above, continues to insist in his own evidence submitted to this very proceeding, that violations of Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources are like ordinary content disputes, that we can just discuss the issue on the talk page and everything will be okay. In fact, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material clearly states that the sourcing requirements are administratively enforceable, and rather strongly implies that the offending content should never appear in the article at all, something an administrator should certainly be expected to understand. John254 01:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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Proposals by User:GoodDamon

Proposed principles

WP:SOCK and WP:ROLE are not optional

1) If claims of mitigating circumstances such as shared proxies are not backed by evidence thereof, a checkuser-determination of sockpuppetry stands. When the sockpuppets in question edit solely on behalf of the organization their IP addresses are traced to, they may be presumed to be WP:ROLE accounts. --GoodDamon 23:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

"Sockpuppetry" relates to the same individual operating more than one account while claiming that they are different people. A "role account" is a registered account that is used by more than one individual. I understand the issues raised concerning editing from certain IP addresses, but I do not see how invoking either of these concepts is relevant or advances the discussion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

@Newyorkbrad: I had assumed -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that one of the ways sockpuppetry is determined is through the results of checkuser, and that role accounts are often identifiable as coming from the organization that established them. In this case, we have multiple single-purpose accounts that have edited from multiple Church of Scientology-owned IP addresses, and all push the same POV and edit with the same level of contentiousness. I can't think of anything more demonstrative of sock/meat puppetry or role accounts, short of actually watching someone use two accounts or trade an account back and forth with someone else. Is there some form of additional verification that needs to be done? --GoodDamon 02:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. If editors are using an organization's IPs, and are editing to promote an organization's POV, then they should be regarded as role accounts. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose Unsupported conclusions. Editors editing from an identifiable organizational IP are neither ROLE accounts, sockpuppets, or even meatpuppets simply by virtue of editing from an identifiable organizational IP, especially if that IP is for an international organization. Whether they have a presumed COI is another issue but this statement is unsupported by logic. --Justallofthem (talk) 17:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Justallofthem, they're not "editing from an identifiable organizational IP," they're editing from an identifiable Church of Scientology-owned IP. It's not just some random organization. And the thing is, you know that. I can't believe you would simply overlook the importance of that. You're being deliberately obfuscatory on this, and I can't figure out why. This isn't an instance of a bunch of people from an organization editing in unrelated articles. If employees of Ford Motor Company were editing in the Dusky-Footed Woodrat article, I don't think anyone would even take note. --GoodDamon 19:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Huh, I would think that you are "deliberately" misunderstanding me except I do not think you would. You started by generalizing this point you bring up, I just continued that theme. Of course, in this case, the "identifiable organizational IP" is the Church. I say, and have always said, that there may be a COI issue. I reject your claim that ROLE, SOCK, and MEAT apply a priori. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess I want to know why you reject them. Were we discussing any other topic, from politics to fruitcakes, checkuser-verified socks -> belonging to an organization devoted to the topic -> that edit solely in that topic -> that edit solely from a promotional POV -> would be banned almost immediately, with your full support. And I'm not even asking for banning, I'm just asking for topic-banning. --GoodDamon 21:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with a Microsoft employee editing the Vista article provided that they declare their COI and otherwise follow the rules here. That is all that WP:COI requires. There is a difference between a PR flack editing here and some random employee. COI is not black and white but in no case is the editor outright topic-banned unless they do something to deserve that. You really need to understand what ROLE, SOCK, and MEAT are because you are not, my friend, using them correctly in this context. No-one ever claimed that Shutterbug was a ROLE account. No-one ever seriously claimed that Shutterbug and Misou were socks. There was serious discussion as to whether they might co-ordinate their edits, i.e. act as meatpuppets, and there was a resolution put in place to address that. But I wish that you would stop with the ROLE and SOCK claims as regards Shutterbug and Misou. --Justallofthem (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose for several reasons:

• A WP:SOCK is "an alternative account used for fraudulent, disruptive, or otherwise deceptive purposes that violate or circumvent enforcement of Wikipedia policies." This assumes the account is used at the same time as the other "alternative account". No evidence has been brought forth that accounts editing from the same IP have been used concurrently. Further no evidence has been brought forth that accounts sharing the same IP[33] have used their account "for fraudulent, disruptive, or otherwise deceptive purposes that violate or circumvent enforcement of Wikipedia policies". I am not saying that such evidence does not exist. It was not presented however and I could not find any.

"No evidence that accounts editing from the same IP have been used concurrently"? Have you looked at checkuser results? There are multiple accounts verified to have edited from individual, church-owned IP addresses. That isn't even in dispute. --GoodDamon 00:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I did look at the checkuser results. Actually several checkusers have been done in the past 2 years and all results from all times have been slapped together in one grid (by Cirt). No evidence of concurrent editing has been shown and the grid shows clearly that several ISPs have been used by several people. But this is not my issue. WP:SHARE already says that "Checkusers cannot look through the wire to see who uses the computer at the other end." I just cannot find that those accounts were "used for fraudulent, disruptive, or otherwise deceptive purposes that violate or circumvent enforcement of Wikipedia policies" or evidence that the accounts are operated by the same person (only that would make them sock puppets). I am trying to point out the logical fallacies of your proposition but you do not seem interested. Shrampes (talk) 03:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• User:GoodDamons proposal asks the editors in question to waive their privacy rights and present personal data to defend themselves. I don't think that is common praxis on Wikipedia. Lastly, there has been no evidence for WP:ROLE accounts (multiple editors using the same identity).

No, it asks the editors in question not to edit in Scientology-related articles because they have a built-in, insurmountable conflict of interest. And as for evidence concerning WP:ROLE, there's never any way to prove it beyond actually filming two people logging in with the same account. You might as well not have a policy on role accounts if you can't take the circumstantial evidence of multiple accounts sharing the same IP addresses owned by the organization the article is about, and editing from the organization's POV, and use that to add 2 and 2. --GoodDamon 00:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

You leave me baffled. Honestly, are you trolling? I know employees that do not talk nicely about their company most of the time. What is wrong with their "built-in, insurmountable conflict of interest"? What you are saying does not make sense. Sorry, but their visible behavior counts, not what you figure they think. Shrampes (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• This proposal tries to change the definition of WP:ROLE accounts to say that users with a shared IP must be banned. WP:ROLE currently means "A role account is an account that is not associated with a particular person, but with an office, position, or task." and not "multiple users with a shared IP". Such policy changes require broad consensus.

I have no way of knowing if one or many people are behind any of the accounts in question. Again, you're arguing against the very existence of the WP:ROLE policy at this point. --GoodDamon 00:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I quoted earlier what a WP:ROLE account is. Please show me where the "WP:ROLE policy" is. My Wikipedia does not have one. Shrampes (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• This proposal tries to circumvent quality control of editor contributions and potentially inflates the number of harassing checkuser requests. I am certain that there are many Microsoft employees in Wikipedia editing Macintosh or Vista articles. The professional background of the editor will go unnoticed in 100% of all cases, but his edits are open to scrutiny by the community. This is how it should be. If any of his background would be known any edits could be dismissed simply by pointing to the editor (and not the edit), saying "the edit must be bad because he works for Microsoft" . Shrampes (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Another argument against WP:ROLE itself. And your analogy is fallacious, because such an editor would get noticed -- and probably banned -- if they edited only in the Vista article, and only to promote it. That is called a single-purpose account, and as long as such accounts edit neutrally, they're fine. But when they edit from a promotional POV, and work for the organization they're promoting, that attracts attention. --GoodDamon 00:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

How would a ROLE account editor be noticed other than by declaring his WP:COI? Shrampes (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Shutterbug, Misou, and all associated accounts editing from Church IP addresses

1) User:Shutterbug, User:Misou, and any account that has edited from or currently edits from IP addresses owned by the Church of Scientology are not exempt from WP:SOCK or WP:ROLE. They are established as single-purpose sock or meatpuppet accounts editing on behalf of the Church of Scientology. Editors in good standing who do not edit on behalf of any organization cannot be expected to edit productively in an atmosphere dominated by the organization most responsible for promotion of the article's topic, and should not be expected to tolerate it.

Comment by Arbitrators:

See my comment on the principle just above. There may be a need to address these accounts, but terms such as "sock" or "role account" are not really relevant. Labeling is never a good substitute for analysis. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Are we saying that any edit on any topic related to Scientology is an edit "on behalf of the Church of Scientology"? To give an analogy, would we view every edit made from a Vatican IP, to any article related to Christianity, as an edit made "on behalf of the Vatican"? I think we are in danger of forgetting that we are dealing with real, flesh-and-blood people here, who see a mass of sometimes badly sourced articles in Wikipedia that treat their religion much as Islam is treated by sites like http://www.prophetofdoom.net. I would be more sympathetic to your line of reasoning if Wikipedia were swamped with articles extremely flattering to the Church, but that is not the case. Instead, there is a long history of edit-wars over the inclusion of material sourced to self-published anti-Scientology sites, in breach of content policies and guidelines, and it is the Scientology opponents who have historically been in the majority and won these edit wars. Jayen466 15:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

That argument, much like Shutterbug's own, is essentially an argument against the WP:SOCK policy and the WP:ROLE policy. If an IP address tracing back to the Vatican consistently only edits in articles about Catholicism, and only ever adds material in favor Catholicism or removes material disparaging to Catholicism, and there are multiple accounts associated with that IP address that all behave in the same way... Then yes, we would view those edits as "on behalf of the Vatican." That theoretical editor has a built-in conflict of interest at bare minimum. As for bad sources in Wikipedia, I agree with you completely... and that has absolutely no bearing on this. Bad sources for content and role accounts are two entirely separate issues, and frankly I think this is the wrong forum for content issues. If you regard a source as bad, you RfC it, or you take it to RS/N. With BLPs, you take the source out of the article immediately (and if you're the one who added it in the first place, you accept that removal instead of edit-warring over it)... and then you RfC it, or you take it to RS/N. It's not a complicated process, but it's a process that never happened with the sources you've been talking about. Don't get me wrong, the majority of them should be purged... I think we absolutely have consensus on that. But what that has to do with this arbitration, I just can't figure out. --GoodDamon 16:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - Again, illogical. No editor here is exempt from ROLE or SOCK. That is a meaningless statement. Followed by the unsupported claim that these are "established", presumably by the organization, and that they are SOCK and MEAT. Next, the idea that Shutterbug or any other of the subject editors "dominates" in the Scientology series is just ludicrous. The series is "dominated" by Cirt, an anti-NRM POV-warrior. Scientology articles have always been "dominated" by critics which is why they read as they do; lots of understanding of criticism, little understanding of Scientology. If Scientologists are expected to edit alongside confirmed anti-Scientologists, some of whom stand outside Churches wearing masks and being rowdy and some of whom maintain personal sites devoted to criticism of Scientology then critics and others can show a little hospitality to Scientologists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justallofthem (talk • contribs) 17:47, December 12, 2008

Comment by others:

Per the original arbitration, which established both the puppetry and likely WP:ROLE status of the accounts, and the ownership of the IP addresses from which the accounts were/are editing, in a checkuser. --GoodDamon 22:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. Multiple single purpose accounts place other editors at a disadvantage and inevitably skew articles towards the organization's POV. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Again, the quality of contribution counts and not "religion, philosophy, race, nationality" or anything else like that. No evidence has been brought forth that edits of these editors have harmed Wikipedia. All I could find is that they are WP:SPAs. Shrampes (talk) 22:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - Proposal says that such editors are "not exempt" from WP:SOCK and WP:ROLE. It does not specifically state that those rules will be instantly applied in all cases. As such, I think it is primarily just an attempt to apply an existing rule in a specific situation, which is also a situation which probably exists with several other countries, churches, and other organizations as well. John Carter (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Shutterbug, Misou, and other accounts found to edit from Church of Scientology addresses topic-banned

1) All accounts found to edit on behalf of the Church of Scientology are topic-banned indefinitely. They are not banned from Wikipedia, and are invited to edit productively in other areas of interest.

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Comment by parties:

Comment: Misou's IP usage was found to be unrelated to that of the others in the CU. On what basis is he included here? Jayen466 14:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Also see my comment above, timed 15:24, 12 December 2008. Jayen466 15:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Read further down in the same checkuser you link. He/she was later confirmed. --GoodDamon 16:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

All I see is "Unrelated Misou's IP usage is unrelated to the others." What are you referring to? I also wonder if the use of http://your-freedom.net by Scientologists could possibly be related to the fact that computers in Scientology buildings are said to have a filtering software installed that blocks access to many critical sites, including, possibly, Scientology articles on Wikipedia. Because getting round such filters is what your-freedom.net is mainly designed for. Jayen466 16:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Misou and an account called User:Grrrilla were confirmed further down. Seriously, just keep scrolling. It's right there. --GoodDamon 17:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

That was in May 2007. The remedies currently in place were formulated several months after that. They did not specify that Misou was forbidden to edit Scientology-related articles. Hence I see no valid reason for editors to object to Misou editing the articles, absent any specific problems with his editing. Jayen466 20:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

These things are big and rather confusing, so I thought I should point these results to you as well. Misou is actually one of the accounts that has used a lot of Church-associated IP addresses and open proxies. --GoodDamon 21:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

[34] Jayen466 22:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Ummm... Alrighty, then. [35]. --GoodDamon 23:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and uhh, actually, if they're using proxies to get around filters in Scientology buildings, isn't that kind of indicative of the problem? --GoodDamon 17:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment: The edit behavior of those editors needs to be reviewed and weighted before this proposal can even be considered. All I have seen here is opinion not supported by diffs. A short check on the last edits of the concerned editors does not reveal problematic edits. Shrampes (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I still think it's a bit early in the case to be proposing remedies, especially broad restrictive remedies. Hasty solutions seldom cover every angle effectively. How would you know who's from the Church of Scientology if they switch over to the complete use of proxies? How would you distinguish between ordinary Scientologists editing from their homes over something they care about, from believers of any other religion doing the same thing? And would you allow them to use article talk pages, noticeboards, and dispute resolution pertinent to Scientology or would they be restricted to OTRS? Those are just some practical concerns that come to mind; I don't mean to imply agreement or disagreement. At this point I'll keep an open mind. Durova^Charge! 05:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

An assumption of innocence based on unprovable and unlikely claims of a shared proxy cannot and should not be used to sidestep WP:SOCK. --GoodDamon 23:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Support Based on years of history, it can no longer be assumed that these editors can follow NPOV on the topic of Scientology. There is no reason to believe that they would be biased on unrelated topics. ("Unrelated" defined broadly.) ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support Having interacted directly with some of these users and extensively reviewing their history, it is clear to me that they have a very strong POV which can get in the way of constructive editing. Although this in itself is not necessarily grounds to ban, due to the repeated history of using open proxies and official Church of Scientology-owned IPs (sorry, ns1.scientology.org is NOT a kiosk proxy), I believe that a topic ban (not global) is well in order. ←Spidern→ 03:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment Having looked at some edit histories and interactions, it is clear to me that most of the other editors contributing to these articles have very strong anti-Scientology POVs that get in the way of constructive editing. Eschewing the entire body of published scholarly literature (except Stephen A. Kent, of course) in favour of whyaretheydead.net and Operation Clambake is ample evidence of that. How would you like to address that problem? Or do you think the articles will get better if we just leave the field to the anti-Scientology crowd? I would suggest both sides have to learn to work together, using proper sources. As Crotalus horridus (talk · contribs) pointed out, there is published analysis and criticism of Scientology as well, it's just a bit more responsible and intelligent than what you find on the net. I am sure we can get Scientologists to see that criticism published in bona fide, reliable sources must have its place in these articles. But that is a whole lot different from the sort of polemics and ridicule passed off as NPOV editing by some editors in the past. Jayen466 17:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Again I ask what that has to do with sockpuppetry and role accounts? You seem to be saying, "Some editors have use bad sources. Therefore, we should ignore role accounts and the policy they violate." Seriously, what are you trying to say? You have well established that there are sourcing issues. No one contests that. But it has nothing to do with this issue. --GoodDamon 17:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:ROLE states: "A role account is an account that is not associated with a particular person, but with an office, position, or task. Those doing the task use the account only to do the task. They have other accounts for other work." I do not think that Shutterbug (talk · contribs) is such an account. I believe the account is associated with a particular person, who has edited Wikipedia from various locations, including buildings owned by the Church of Scientology. Jayen466 20:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's one of the things checkuser is for. At this point, it boils down to how believable the proxy argument is. The arbiters aren't idiots, and will be able to judge that for themselves. --GoodDamon 22:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to Jayen466 See prior evidence provided by jpgordon (talk · contribs). ←Spidern→ 15:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of last year's Checkuser result, and of the remedies that resulted from them. They did not prohibit Misou from editing. What has changed to make these remedies inappropriate now? Jayen466 15:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Those remedies were in part predicated on the notion that the proxy argument held water. As you are aware, there are several editors who feel that recent discussions on the matter have rendered those arguments highly unlikely. --GoodDamon 22:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced. The whole idea that this is some kind of official drive by the CofS is ludicrous. Jayen466 23:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Then you will remain unconvinced. I doubt there's very much I could say to change your mind, so this is another issue we'll need to leave up to the arbitrators to decide. But if you're interested, you might read up on the history between Scientology and the Internet (before wikilinking this one, I made sure most of the cites were good ones). --GoodDamon 01:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposals by Jossi

Proposed principles

Neutral point of view and sourcing

1) Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view; that is, they must portray all significant points of view in a fairly and accurately manner, and Wikipedia's nature as an encyclopaedia demand that articles should always use the best and most reputable sources. A neutral point of view cannot be synthesized merely by presenting a plurality of opposing viewpoints, each derived from a polarized source.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. Jayen466 21:02, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. Shrampes (talk) 04:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support John Carter (talk) 17:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Reliance on secondary sources

2) Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on reliable secondary sources. This means that while primary sources can be used to support specific statements of fact limited to descriptive aspects of these primary sources, the bulk of the article should rely on secondary sources.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Strongly support. This has been a serious, ongoing problem with Scientology-related articles. We make far too extensive use of primary sources, and often in a manner which amounts to original research by synthesis. *** Crotalus *** 15:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support I have been attempting to improve the quality of Scientology-related articles by removing secondary(typo) primary sources and participating in dialogue to find objective alternative secondary sources. ←Spidern→ 16:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support - and I think Spidern above meant "removing primary sources" in favor of the more reliable secondary ones. :) --GoodDamon 16:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support Convenience links to primary sources should only be given where secondary sources specifically mention these primary sources. Quotes from or content summaries of the primary sources should be limited to the extent to which these have been quoted or summarised in secondary literature published by reputable publishing houses. Jayen466 17:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. Shrampes (talk) 04:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support - There are times, and this might be one of them, where secondary sources which both sides agree are "reliable" might be hard to decide, but the effort should be made in any event. John Carter (talk) 17:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia content policies

"Neutral point of view", "Verifiability" and "No original research" are the three core content policies of Wikipedia. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles, and thus they should not be interpreted or applied in isolation from one another, or one at the expense of another.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Shrampes (talk) 04:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Cirt banned for 12 months from editing Scientology and related articles

1) User:Cirt banned for 12 months from editing Scientology and related articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Oppose. No evidence of value to support this. Cirt should be commended for his actions in general. User:Jossi was furious over Cirt's RFA, was extremely disruptive and disgruntled there by posting repeatedly, and has now arrived here for political reasons unrelated to the Scientology issues. As a noted POV pusher and advocate for a cult organization, Jossi's suggestions here should be taken with a grain of salt given that Cirt has worked to enforce strict COI policies and controls over neutrality abuse the Church of Scientology, which would run counter to Jossi's own goals of advocacy for his own religious sect. rootology (C)(T) 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, this is not a !vote, secondly, this arbitration is not about me, thirdly I don't belong to a religious sect, I am a practicing Jew, and finally, you may consider avoiding poisoning the well and repeating your comments and make constructive proposals and/or arguments instead. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration is not for revenge. Sorry. rootology (C)(T) 04:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Nor is arbitration a forum for unbridled off-the-wall personal attacks against other editors without so much as a shred of supporting evidence. Please see my proposed finding of fact concerning your comments here. John254 05:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Daft. Stifle (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Although BLP violations are not to be taken lightly, Cirt (talk · contribs) has acknowledged his fault and has not been shown to be in violation of any other policies. ←Spidern→ 16:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose - The worst that can be said for the two edits under the microscope here is that they were borderline edits that Cirt didn't war over, and appropriately followed up on by going through the RfC process... something I heartily wish more editors would do instead of warring. --GoodDamon 16:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. What I can see is that Cirt as an editor has done edits that are slanted to the "negative" or use sensational sources as opposed to available scholarly materials. As editor should be put under probation and scrutiny but a ban is not justified. But his qualifications for Adminship should be reviewed. I expect Administrators to enforce WP:RS, WP:BLP and not to play games with it. Shrampes (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt banned for 6 months from editing articles related to New religious movements

2) User:Cirt banned for 6 months from editing articles related to New religious movements.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Oppose. No evidence of value to support this. Cirt should be commended for his actions in general. User:Jossi was furious over Cirt's RFA, was extremely disruptive and disgruntled there by posting repeatedly, and has now arrived here for political reasons unrelated to the Scientology issues. As a noted POV pusher and advocate for a cult organization, Jossi's suggestions here should be taken with a grain of salt given that Cirt has worked to enforce strict COI policies and controls over neutrality abuse the Church of Scientology, which would run counter to Jossi's own goals of advocacy for his own religious sect. rootology (C)(T) 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No evidence presented supports this. Stifle (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose on general principle. Ban a major FA contributor from the area of his most common FAs? Ridiculous. --GoodDamon 17:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt banned for 6 months from editing BLPs

2) User:Cirt banned for 6 months from editing BLPs ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support per my proposed findings of fact -- however, if we're going to permit Cirt to retain the sysop bit, the WP:BLP ban should be extended to prohibit him from taking any administrative action on, or with respect to edits concerning, content related to any living person. We can hardly allow Cirt to block users for "edit warring" when they have been removing inadequately referenced controversial information concerning living people in conformity to the exception to the 3RR articulated in Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material. It's also worthwhile to note that Cirt currently holds OTRS privileges, which is sad, though the problem appears to be outside of the Arbitration Committee's jurisdiction. John254 03:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. No evidence of value to support this. Cirt should be commended for his actions in general. User:Jossi was furious over Cirt's RFA, was extremely disruptive and disgruntled there by posting repeatedly, and has now arrived here for political reasons unrelated to the Scientology issues. As a noted POV pusher and advocate for a cult organization, Jossi's suggestions here should be taken with a grain of salt given that Cirt has worked to enforce strict COI policies and controls over neutrality abuse the Church of Scientology, which would run counter to Jossi's own goals of advocacy for his own religious sect. rootology (C)(T) 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No evidence presented supports this. Stifle (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose - Again, bad sources are what WP:RS/N is for. If Cirt had warred instead of immediately seeking outside comment on his edits, there might, barely, be a threadbare thin argument here. --GoodDamon 17:09, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose - Evidence presented does not provide sufficient basis for such an extreme action. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt prohibited for 12 months from exercising administrative rights in related articles

3) User:Cirt prohibited for 12 months from exercising any administrative rights in regard of articles related to BLPs and new religious movements, including, but not limited to closing of AfDs, issuing blocks to editors involved in editing these articles, or acting in any related arbitration enforcement.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Oppose. No evidence of value to support this. Cirt should be commended for his actions in general. User:Jossi was furious over Cirt's RFA, was extremely disruptive and disgruntled there by posting repeatedly, and has now arrived here for political reasons unrelated to the Scientology issues. As a noted POV pusher and advocate for a cult organization, Jossi's suggestions here should be taken with a grain of salt given that Cirt has worked to enforce strict COI policies and controls over neutrality abuse the Church of Scientology, which would run counter to Jossi's own goals of advocacy for his own religious sect. rootology (C)(T) 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose as a moot point. Cirt has been scrupulous about avoiding using admin tools in this area, from what I understand. --GoodDamon 17:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Cirt admonished

4) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is strongly admonished for his conduct in this matter and is instructed to refrain from any further incidents of edit warring, biased editing, misrepresentation of sources, or taking taking administrator actions with respect to disputes in articles related to this arbitration case. Cirt is warned that any further such incidents are likely to lead to the banning from editing such articles, or other corrective measures.

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Proposed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - Because the evidence indicates that Cirt did the opposite of edit warring. The most I could see here is a reminder to Cirt to use better sources. And no one has shown any evidence whatsoever of Cirt abusing admin tools. --GoodDamon 00:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

So, make a proposal rather than shooting down all other proposals. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I already have. I don't see a need to make any further proposals, especially regarding Cirt. To me, this is a very simple issue; I am interested in the topic of Scientology as an academic matter, but have no desire to compete with the Church of Scientology directly to edit in those pages. I am against all these proposals to ban, admonish, desysop, or otherwise punish Cirt that have been coming out of the woodwork, because Cirt is a good editor, and I honestly think the arbitrators will look this workshop over and immediately dismiss them. I don't regard him as needing any sort of sanctions, and consider the proposals for them largely a distraction from a very basic problem of accounts editing from Church of Scientology IP addresses. --GoodDamon 05:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Response to GoodDamon edits such as this [36] [37] clearly constitute anything but "did the opposite of edit warring". Why are you misrepresenting the facts of this case? John254 01:08, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I am officially asking the arbitrators to take a look at precisely those diffs, because you are misrepresenting them and I'm beginning to think you have a vendetta here. The first edit was not edit warring. It was a single revert of a bad deletion that took out a large swath of well-sourced material. Every cite in that block of text was good, and its removal as "off-topic" in the first place was highly inappropriate. The same user removed the block again, with the frankly insulting edit summary of "shameful editing - moving to talk". Moving to talk? Good. Deletion of large chunks of appropriate and on-topic material with an insulting edit summary? Bad. Cirt reached 2RR (not 3RR) on that, as did the frankly vexatious editor doing the deletions, but it did go to talk. And you didn't include this context at all. Not all reverts are edit warring, and you are consistently attempting to portray Cirt's edits in ways that don't add up once you look at the context. And you accuse me of misrepresenting anything? The next time you provide some evidence, I strongly suggest you look at the diffs immediately before and immediately after, then look at the talk page. The arbitrators will look at context, so you should too. --GoodDamon 01:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you please cool off a bit? These pages are to explore the subject and make proposals. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact remains that after Cirt used tabloid-sourced gossip to support controversial information concerning a living person [38], he did actually edit-war the tabloid-sourced gossip back into the article [39]. Now, that might not constitute very much edit warring -- even if considered in conjunction with the other, apparently non-WP:BLP violating reversion [40]-- if there weren't a serious WP:BLP violation involved, but, as even editors supporting Cirt concede,

edits to a biography are visible immediately, and may, to the extent that they are poorly sourced and potentially false, cause harm to the subject of an article from the moment of their implementation[41]

Since articles aren't non-viewable drafts, WP:BLP violations are serious freaking business. Especially considered in conjunction with Cirt's prior use of a blog as a source for highly controversial allegations against David Miscavige [42], that adds up to at least three serious WP:BLP violations, which just might be considered actionable misconduct, unless, of course, editors are permitted to repeatedly "cause harm to the subject of an article" with impunity. John254 02:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Rootology

Proposed principles

Use of Arbitration for revenge

1) The Arbitration process is not to be used for revenge, payback, or similar political purposes. Such use is considered disruptive, unhelpful, and sanctionable by the Arbitration Committee.

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Comment by others:

Suggested. Use of this last-ditch process to get "back" at "opponents" in cases you have nothing to do with is both appalling and shameful, and I call on the Committee to smash this process once and for all--kill the drama once and for all and kill it hard. rootology (C)(T) 04:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support. Stifle (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support. The Arbitration process exists to deal with the most complex cases of dispute resolution on Wikipedia, and should not be subverted for wikilawyering or defamation of an otherwise valuable editor. ←Spidern→ 16:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. Recommending severe sanctions unsupported by evidence is a form of gaming the system that should be discouraged. Some entries in this workshop appear to be motivated more by revenge or animus than by legitimate dispute resolution or policy enforcement. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. I've seen absolutely nothing from Cirt meriting the vehemence of the reactions I've seen here. --GoodDamon 01:08, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. But this protection must be good for all, not only the anti-scientology POV reps. Cirt is an issue here and I think GoodDamon needs a check too. But this can be done in civility and by really neutral people. Misou (talk) 03:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

On exactly what evidence would you say I "need a check?" I'm assuming checkuser? Or are you suggesting someone check my edits to see if I'm a single-purpose account? --GoodDamon 17:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly support - Two instances of using less than stellar sources are not grounds for anything like the action taken here. In response to Misou above, such statements as "Cirt is an issue here" and "GoodDamon needs a check too" (presumably meaning checkuser?), particularly on the very thin evidence presented here, do nothing to encourage civility. John Carter (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

Protection of the Arbitration process

1) Arbiters, or Arb Clerks at the direction of Arbiters, will remove unhelpful, disruptive, drama-mongering, or clearly political Workshop sections and proposals a) brought by people uninvolved in the existing case; b)( that serve no purpose but as payback; c) as decided by them, with such rationales being public either by posting an explanation on the Workshop talk page, or in an edit summary upon it's removal. If users repeatedly disrupt the Arbitration process, the Clerks or Arbitration Committee members may sanction the involved users.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Good idea, and the clerk can get started with some of your comments. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

As a point of clarification, the Clerk won't do anything at this point in time. I suggest that all of you calm down, take a breath and pause before clicking submit; unlike some other venues on Wikipedia, the Arbitration Committee is sufficiently intelligent to wade through hyperbole and revenge-proposals (should they occur/have occured) and, potentially, use it against the person making such remarks. Daniel (talk) 05:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Suggested. Use of this last-ditch process to get "back" at "opponents" in cases you have nothing to do with is both appalling and shameful, and I call on the Committee to smash this process once and for all--kill the drama once and for all and kill it hard. rootology (C)(T) 04:54, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Jayen466

Proposed principles

BLPs to be based on coverage in most reliable sources

1) Biographies of living persons should accurately reflect coverage in the most reliable published sources. Private third-party websites that host otherwise unpublished writing or copies of primary sources (such as court documents, affidavits etc.) are not reliable sources for BLP purposes.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Jayen466 15:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Endorse. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - BLP itself is worded in a way that requires good reliable sources. --GoodDamon 01:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - This is obvious. Shrampes (talk) 19:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

BLPs not to be primarily designed to disparage, embarrass or ridicule

2) Biographies of living persons should be written from a position of fundamental respect towards the individual. No biography of a living person should ever give the impression of having been written primarily to disparage, embarrass or ridicule its subject.

Comment by Arbitrators:

The first sentence is not quite correct; BLP requires that articles be written with an eye towards basic human dignity as a general principle, not from a position of respect towards the article subject in particular. Kirill ^(prof) 16:55, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Jayen466 15:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Endorse. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose/Support - BLPs should be written neutrally, and avoid anything that could be construed as libel. The second sentence I'm fine with, of course. Having spent quite a lot of time editing Barack Obama's BLP, I can tell you neutrality in BLPs is hard; half the people coming in want to proclaim him the messiah, the other half want to call him a foreign-born terrorist. --GoodDamon 01:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

NPOV is hard, because in your example he is obviously neither. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Scientology articles have used poor sourcing

1) A number of Scientology-related articles have used poor sourcing – relying on

• various types of primary sources (publications by Hubbard and the Church of Scientology, court documents, affidavits, etc.),
• the private websites of ex-Scientologists and other Scientology opponents,
• press publications that have a below-average reputation for fact-checking and objective reporting.

Scholarly publications, the most reliable type of sources, have been underrepresented, despite a wealth of material being available.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Proposed. Jayen466 15:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Obvious conclusion from the evidence presented. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposals by Kristen Eriksen

Proposed principles

Proportionality

1) Remedies imposed by the arbitration committee are intended to be commensurate with the culpability of the editors against whom they are imposed. Disproportionately harsh or severe remedies are not implemented against editors for punitive purposes or to "make an example out of them", as such action is demoralizing to a volunteer project. A few isolated instances of policy violations will not ordinarily result in any remedies against an editor at all. This principle is especially relevant to the enforcement of essential policies such as WP:BLP: though edits to a biography are visible immediately, and may, to the extent that they are poorly sourced and potentially false, cause harm to the subject of an article from the moment of their implementation, these facts do not imply that we should rush to block/ban an editor or desysop an administrator the moment they violate the policy even once or twice.

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Comment by parties:

A few isolated incidents is one thing; and a pattern of behavior is another. Check the evidence page, and the involved editor's block history. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - And might I suggest jossi apply the above sentence's logic to the accounts editing from Church of Scientology IP addresses? --GoodDamon 01:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed, in response to certain almost bizarrely harsh remedies proposed by John254 and Jossi. I appreciate the frustration of trying to enforce WP:BLP when it seems that even admins and OTRS members are violating it, and the temptation that a respected editor like John254 and a respected admin like Jossi might feel to come here bearing torches and pitchforks. But it's also important to remember that not everyone is familiar with every detail of WP:BLP, and even those who are may find the policy complex and difficult to apply correctly in every single case they encounter during the course of an extensive history of contributions. The appropriate response to seeing evidence that a respected admin and OTRS member like Cirt made two edits that may not have been completely kosher is to write a polite note on his talk page concerning the WP:BLP issues. Desysoppings and bans are a last resort, but some editors seem to be using them as the first items on the menu. Kristen Eriksen (talk) 18:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you'll have to forgive Kristen here. She might have actually believed the factually incorrect statements made by the editors supporting Cirt, such as this gem:

BLP provides drastic measures as options in cases of edit-warring to insert violations. Cirt didn't edit-war. Cirt introduced material (or restored material deleted by another user), but went with consensus when it was against him. You are free to disagree with Cirt over whether a source is reliable or not -- heck, I certainly do -- but you are not free to impose restrictions on him when he didn't war over that source. Simple test: Did Cirt keep reinserting the material, or did he put in requests for comment, and abide by the results of those requests? If the former, then sure, ban him. But it wasn't the former, it was the latter...[43]

In fact, after Cirt used tabloid-sourced gossip to support controversial information concerning a living person [44], he did actually edit-war the tabloid-sourced gossip back into the article [45]. When we also consider Cirt's use of a blog as a source for highly controversial allegations against David Miscavige [46], that adds up to at least three serious WP:BLP violations, plus any others described on the evidence page, not to mention the other non-BLP sourcing problems and edit warring described there. Also, as Jossi points out, Cirt was actually blocked seven times for disrupting articles largely related to new-age religions under his prior account. John254 01:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of interest, presumptions

2) Users who edit from the IP addresses of a given organization are irrebuttably presumed to have a conflict of interest with respect to the editing of articles concerning or reasonably related to said organization. While editors under such a presumption are free to perform uncontroversial edits such as the reversion of obvious vandalism, libel, or WP:BLP violations, making controversial content edits may be improper, or at the very least give rise to the appearance of impropriety. For this reason, should users editing from a given organization make considerable controversial edits reasonably related to it, they may be prophylacticly banned from content concerning it without any specific findings of wrongdoing. Should a regular pattern of controversial presumptively conflict-of-interest editing emerge, all editors from relevant organization may be topic banned.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support - That's one of the reasons WP:COI exists. --GoodDamon 01:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Kristen Eriksen (talk) 18:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - The precedent being set here applies all across the board; no organization should be able to airbrush their weak points (or dishonestly inflate their good ones) on Wikipedia. Even if purportedly editing under the guidelines set by Wikipedia, an editor that has a working relationship with an organization will inevitably have a bias, whether unconscious or otherwise. That is not to say that one must actively seek out such editors in a "witch-hunt", but should a situation arise where disruptive editing is apparent, the inherent bias of such an involved party must be considered. ←Spidern→ 06:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - although I would disagree with Spidern's comments that any editor with a working relationship with an organization would have an "inherent bias". While it is not unreasonable to think that such a bias exists and to assume that to be true in most cases, I think it is going too far to instantly assume that an inherent bias exists in all such cases. John Carter (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Editing from the Church of Scientology

1) Many users editing from the Church of Scientology have made considerable controversial edits reasonably related to it.

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Comment by others:

Proposed. Kristen Eriksen (talk) 18:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Opposed - Controversial edits are controversial only because of two opposing parties present. This cannot be blamed on one side only. Also, no evidence has been brought forth that the "Church of Scientology" edited in Wikipedia at all, despite of the existence of single-purpose accounts. Shrampes (talk) 19:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

The Church of Scientology topic-banned

1) The Church of Scientology, and all users editing from it, are indefinitely banned from any subject matter directly related to Scientology.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support - I would not support this harsh wording if the accounts in question showed any sign of any interest in Wikipedia aside from using it as a promotional vehicle and removing negative material, but enough's enough. And I'm afraid I just don't believe that future editors working from Church-owned IP addresses would behave differently. --GoodDamon 01:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Kristen Eriksen (talk) 18:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - I could reasonably see the same restriction being applied to other organizations with a clear POV problem relating to certain content, like Vatican City editing articles related to the Roman Catholic Church, if content related to such bodies were to experience similar problems in the future. John Carter (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Opposed - This is not backed by evidence or Wikipedia policy but would strengthen those editors who are trying to abuse Wikipedia for POV pushing. Organizational editors are already required to declare their WP:COI. Also, with a general ban we would be back here in no time: Any new editor coming to any Portal:Scientology article would immediately become a "suspect" and the witch hunt can start again. Shrampes (talk) 19:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposals by Durova

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is not a battleground

1) An old custom used to avoid discussing religion and politics because the conversation is apt to end in a quarrel, yet Wikipedia covers these subjects. In the spirit of WP:NOT#Not a battleground, the site asks editors of differing personal beliefs to collaborate toward the shared goal of building an encyclopedia.

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Proposed. Durova^Charge! 18:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Good, but can be better written. "old custom" and "apt to end in a quarrel" is too colloquial ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

A bit informal, perhaps. While composing this I was thinking about ethnic/national disputes, etc. and how many of those arbitrations are basically 'religion and politics' quarrels. Durova^Charge! 05:24, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. The way to get us forward in this is to hold all editors to the same clear standards of reliable sourcing: published, reputable secondary sources. These can be researched in a spirit of collegiality, irrespective of personal beliefs. Jayen466 12:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support, to the extent not inconsistent with WP:COI :) Kristen Eriksen (talk) 19:40, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - Our goal is to generate reliable content, regardless of our own feelings on the subject. I know from personal experience it can often be difficult to try to be fair and neutral about matters one has strong personal opinions about, but in cases where that does happen seeking outside input is the way to go. John Carter (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. As John Carter. Shrampes (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposals by Kirill Lokshin

Proposed principles

Purpose of Wikipedia

1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, publishing or promoting original research, and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Standard. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Endorse ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Conduct and decorum

2) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.

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Standard. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Endorse ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Wikipedia editorial process

3) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion – involving the wider community, if necessary – and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic.

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Standard. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Endorse ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Biographies of living persons

4) Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. In cases where the appropriateness of material regarding a living person is questioned, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm."

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Standard. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Endorse ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Conflict of interest

5) Editors who have duties, allegiances, or beliefs that prevent them from making a genuine, good-faith effort to edit from a neutral point of view in certain subject areas are expected to refrain from editing in those subject areas. Instead, they may make suggestions or propose content on the talk pages of affected articles.

Editors who work in subject areas where a perception may arise that they have duties or allegiances that could prevent them from writing neutrally and objectively are encouraged to disclose the nature and extent of any such duties or allegiances.

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From two principles in the COFS case. Kirill ^(prof) 17:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The more recent formulation of these concepts in the International Churches of Christ case is also relevant. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:36, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Responsibility of organizations

6) Editors who access Wikipedia through an organization's IP address and who edit Wikipedia articles which relate to that organization have a presumptive conflict of interest. Regardless of these editors' specific relationship to that organization or function within it, the organization itself bears a responsibility for appropriate use of its servers and equipment. If an organization fails to manage that responsibility, Wikipedia may address persistent violations of fundamental site policies through blocks or bans.

Comment by Arbitrators:

From the COFS case. Kirill ^(prof) 17:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Strongly Support - Please see my comment made above.

Participating in arbitration

7) The Committee encourages community participation at all stages of an arbitration proceeding, and a number of pages are provided where members of the community—including parties both involved and uninvolved in the matter being considered—may comment, make proposals, and otherwise take an active part in arbitration.

This openness is coupled with the expectation that editors who choose to participate will maintain proper decorum and work towards constructively resolving the dispute, rather than attempting to further it through inflammatory rhetoric, senseless proposals, or attempts to pursue unrelated conflicts.

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Could be worded better. Kirill ^(prof) 22:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Cirt and BLP

1) Cirt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has, on several occasions, violated the policy on biographies of living persons in the course of adding material to articles ([47], [48]).

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Proposed. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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More heat than light, Kirill. You cite only two diffs and BLP is not applicable to the second one. All of the sources in the second instance are reliable; if there's an issue it's closer to coatracking. The first one falls under BLP, but the real problem was his understanding of WP:RS. Cirt had assumed (as many people do) that audio recordings are trustworthy. Actually they're not when the source is unreliable; audio editing can alter meanings completely. A single instance of a common misunderstanding hardly merits an arbitration resolution. Durova^Charge! 19:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Two diffs are cited here by Kirill. One is to a BLP article where I used a blog source - I mistakenly thought that since this source was actually an audio recording of an interview, it was okay to use to back up claims made by the person being interviewed because this could be verified by the audio recording itself - but I realize now that if the blog itself is not deemed reliable, someone could argue that the audio was edited. I apologize for this and I will be much more careful in the future to avoid these types of sources in BLPs if there is any question as to reliability of the source.

The other diff that was not added into a BLP article, and it is an edit from a few weeks before the ArbCom case started. The material added included an on-the-record statement made by an official representative of Scientology to The Daily Telegraph hosted on a News.com.au site, a second cite also to The Daily Telegraph which is used as a secondary source confirming material mentioned in the book Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, and a cite to The Age (which itself is citing the Australian magazine New Idea). The final cite in that section of material, to the source Australian IT, was only being used to note that a particular magazine article was popular, and was not being used to backup the prior content in the other paragraphs. I feel this issue is something that could have been resolved with discussion at RSN prior to ArbCom, I would have deferred to consensus of the community after previously uninvolved parties had weighed in at a RSN discussion. Cirt (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Support because I disagree with the defence proffered above, and am very disappointed by it. The blog audio simply should not be used if the statements in it have not been covered by any reliable published sources. Wikipedia is not supposed to do leading-edge research for negative information on living people, but is supposed to reflect coverage in the most reliable sources, and err on the side of caution in BLPs. Beyond that, should we really be quoting a book as an encyclopedic source that its publisher dare not publish in the UK, New Zealand and Australia, for fear of falling foul of libel laws? Lastly, the Australian IT article did not claim that the magazine article was "popular", but, literally, called it one of a "slew of blaring headlines" in "celebrity gossip weeklies". This, in my book, is defending the indefensible. Jayen466 00:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Jayen, I certainly agree that the audio shouldn't have been cited. Cirt came to understand that problem as soon as I explained it to him. Other editors should have taken the second instance to RSN if they wished to challenge it, because that isn't nearly so clear cut. We don't use arbitration to get the upper hand in legitimate content disputes. Durova^Charge! 00:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The possibility was mentioned that the video might have been altered. This is not actually the point. Even if the video had been on the speaker's own website, and had been certified to present his exact words and intent, I would not have used it: simply on the basis of WP:SELFQUEST, and the principle that extraordinary claims required extraordinary sources. I could easily have myself interviewed, make a claim about the director of a company I have worked with, and put the video on my website, or have someone else put it up on theirs. This does not make me a reliable source for the director's BLP. Do you see what I mean?

I believe it is widely acknowledged that WP has "a BLP problem". In my view, the problem is due to the fact that some editors are more interested in including surprising or "interesting" content, however tenuously sourced, than they are in writing a conservative, but boring biography. Yet the way I understand WP:BLP and WP:V, such sources as we have or had in Miscavige's article, alleging copyright fraud and physical abuse of employees, only become valid BLP sources if such claims have been discussed in multiple high-quality sources. For controversial claims, it behooves us as an encyclopedia to steer clear of celebrity gossip weeklies, tabloids, self-published and primary sources, if these sources are the only ones raising a specific allegation with regard to the article subject. Highly regarded publishing houses like Gale, say, don't source their biographical dictionaries to such publications either.

With regard to the second case, what you surely see is clear cut about it is that the cited sources do not support the statement that "Scientology has 'sex lessons'". Neither source cited says that.

Thanks for the work you and Cirt have been doing on the links to xenu.net etc. It is in a way unfortunate that the current focus here is on Cirt as much as it is; we came here by way of AE threads, one of which specifically related to Cirt, and that is still reflected in the evidence. Now that you have brought us here, looking at other editors' actions might have been just as worthwhile. Cheers, Jayen466 00:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

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Reply to Durova: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources quite clearly states that taboid-sourced gossip concerning living persons may not be added to Wikipedia articles, as Cirt did [49] [50]:

Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases and attributions to anonymous sources. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?

The fact that reliable sources repeated the tabloid-sourced gossip, while expressly disclaiming its truth, does not permit its inclusion in an article, nor does mere attribution of the offending material to the tabloid itself, especially when the context in which the tabloid allegations appear suggests that we are endorsing them. Clear WP:BLP violations cannot be justified by declaring the matter to be a "content dispute". John254 01:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

So you're asking the Arbitration Committee to rule on content. Why didn't you ask the BLP noticeboard before the case? Why didn't you discuss the source with Cirt? Durova^Charge! 01:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee may legitimately determine whether editors have complied with the biographies of living persons policy. Such determinations are not considered "to rule on content" because compliance with the policy is not optional, nor the subject of a legitimate content dispute in clear cases. John254 01:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Think what our ethic and national disputes would become if ArbCom accepted that uncritically. Israelis and Palestinians could stop discussing whether sources are legitimate enough to cite; simply wait in silence until the next arbitration and clobber an opponent with one or two instances of good faith gray area action. Durova^Charge! 02:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it would be problematic for the Arbitration Committee to adjudicate every question of source reliability does not imply that the Committee should refuse to perform such determinations where the matter is obvious and the stakes are high, as they are when Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources is violated. Your proposed abdication of the Committee's responsibility would result in an "open season" for WP:BLP violations, so long as one could muster a sufficient number of editors to create a consensus for the policy to be violated. Since many of the subjects of our biographies have a long list of enemies who would like nothing better than to use Wikipedia as a forum for defamation, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources is not enforced according to consensus, but rather by administrators and OTRS in the first instance, and, where necessary, by the Arbitration Committee. John254 03:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Something other than reasoned dialog is occurring here. John has continued to invoke OTRS above and here after Cary Bass specifically posted to one of John's proposals to say any inclusion of OTRS in this is absurd.[51] I propose no abdication of ArbCom's legitimate role with respect to BLP, as noted in this example from my evidence. The Committee is well aware of my long commitment to the Bluemarine case and other BLP disputes. John, if you are confused by the presentations at this case you are welcome to ask for clarification on the talk page. Durova^Charge! 03:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Durova, if you believe that "any inclusion of OTRS in this is absurd", you can start by removing it from your own evidence. The insinuation that I am "confused by the presentations at this case" is insulting: while I am quite aware of the meaning of Cary Bass' remarks, I consider them to be an unsupported assertion. Your implicit claim that your "long commitment to the Bluemarine case and other BLP disputes" implies that nothing you support here suggests compromising WP:BLP enforcement is without merit, since your previous WP:BLP related work does not render you an infallible authority upon the subject. The fact remains that you have not substantively responded to my argument that the refusal of the Arbitration Committee to determine whether editors have complied with Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources, on the grounds of not resolving "content disputes", would result in massive WP:BLP violations perpetrated by some rather COI editors. Indeed, your work in the Matt Sanchez case appears to contradict the position you are taking here: that whether the biographies of living persons policy was violated in this instance is a "content dispute" on which the Arbitration Committee should not rule. John254 04:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, John. Please take side discussions to talk. Durova^Charge! 04:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. The evidence of overt BLP violations by Cirt has been very thin. One example that's been offered, by Jayen, is John Carmichael (Scientologist). That biography is very well-sourced, has never had any controversy on the talk page, any editing disputes, and when it was nominated for AFD by Justallofthem it was almost a unanimous keep that got praise from the closing admin. As for the audio interview, I recall a dispute some time ago over whether audio interviews were reliable sources, regardless of where hosted, and I believe the outcome was that they were reliable sources for the speaker's views, just like any interview. It certainly isn't so clear an issue that a single use of such a source is grounds for formally correcting an editor. Considering the large number of articles Cirt has written, many of them featured, and the very large number of sources he's added to those and existing articles, complaints about a couple of sources seem overblown. Cirt has not been the subject of a user RfC on this topic or other dispute resolution, so it seems premature to admonish him about this. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

That John Carmichael (Scientologist) may be WP:BLP compliant does not negate clear-cut evidence of Cirt's WP:BLP violations on other articles. Your hearsay regarding an unidentified "dispute some time ago over whether audio interviews were reliable sources, regardless of where hosted" notwithstanding, it is clear that blog-hosted audio interviews do not pass muster as reliable sources for controversial claims concerning living persons per Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources (unless the interview is hosted on the subject's own blog, and used in compliance with Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source). Whatever may be said of the argument that prolific content contributions excuse, to some extent, the violation of policies which are designed for the protection of Wikipedia only, such contributions do not grant one a license for the violation of the biographies of living persons policy, which is intended to protect the people who we write about from harm -- that Cirt was an excellent content contributor would be cold comfort to someone who he had defamed. The function of arbitration proceedings to consider the behavior of all involved parties would be frustrated if we required "a user RfC" before considering Cirt's behavior. Moreover, the vital importance of the biographies of living persons policy weighs in favor of waiving procedural barriers to the consideration of policy violations. John254 01:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The error there doesn't appear to be using a recorded interview as a source, regardless of where it's hosted. It would be using that interview as a source for the actions of a third party. While that is not allowed by WP:BLP, I question whether other SPSes, such as Scientology websites, have been used for the actions or words of third parties, and whether the editors bringing this complaint have never used SPSes in the same manner. If so, then either all editors should receive similar admonitions, or none should. I don't think I've ever seen anyone admonished for such a minor infraction. Is that fair? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

If other editors have violated Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources, then you are welcome to introduce evidence to that effect. We're not going to admonish editors on the basis of mere suspicion. John254 03:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

John, the matter of whether interviews published on blogs are reliable has come up again and again, without a definitive decision by the community. Here's an example from a project page in August: An interview is an interview. If the person being interviewed was in any way being misrepresented, something probably would have been done. The only real question is, "Is this blog so unreliable that they might have made up this interview completely?"[52] ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's another example: ...If the actor gives an interview to a blog or otherwise self-published source, we are to be very cautious about citing claims from there, even if the actor said them (or the source put the words in print as the actor saying them). So if Brad Pitt talks to 60 Minutes about how he really likes Clark Gable, that is fine. If Jonah Hill gives some blog an interview, then we have to be really careful even deciding to cite it at all (remember, they could just be making it up or editing the responses). Protonk (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[53] According to Protonk, such interview may be acceptable and one of the concerns is whether the interview has been edited - not a major problem with an audio transcript. The point being, that this is not a clearcut part of Wiki policy, and it's improper to admonish a good editor for a minor violation of an unclear policy. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's the thread I was looking for: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_4#Wikinews_redux. In it I posted this comment.

My view of interviews published in self-published venues like blogs or Wikinews is that we should regard them as reliable sources for the statements of the interviewees unless we have reason to doubt the veracity of the interview. Interviews, regardless of where published, should not be used as reliable sources for facts about 3rd-parties, but they may be used to cite opinions if the interviewee is notable in regard to the 3rd-party. (Bill Clinton's opinion of Hillary Clinton is notable, John Doe's opinion is not). ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Several people agreed and no one disagreed. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

None of your examples are germaine to the matter at hand. The first relates to articles concerning video games, which have considerably lower sourcing standards than biographies of living persons. The second and third examples relate to statements of opinions that the speaker holds of third parties, and do not appear to concern themselves with especially controversial material. Cirt's use of a blog interview [54] to make allegations against David Miscavige involves distinct, highly controversial, claims of fact against Miscavige, and is only peripherally related to the speaker at all. Cirt's blog-sourced allegations are in no way comparable to the sort of innocuous, subjective statements contemplated in your latter two examples. Furthermore, there is a very good "reason to doubt the veracity of the interview" of Marc Headley, since it was not posted on Headley's own blog, but one controlled by a third party. In the absence of any reliable source attesting to the accuracy of the recording, it would be quite possible for someone to have fabricated the interview out of whole cloth, or spliced together actual recordings of Headley's statements in a misleading fashion, then self-published it on a blog. As a review of the sources cited in our article on Project Chanology clearly reveals, there are plenty of people who are quite motivated to fabricate allegations against the Church of Scientology, its officials, or members. Actual verification of the recording's authenticity would involve a level of audio analysis that would surely qualify as original research. However, we need proceed no further into this quagmire of whether there's a community consensus that an interview posted on a third-party blog constitutes a reliable source for making serious accusations against a living person, because the biographies of living persons policy provides a clear, bright-line rule to resolve this situation: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source expressly states that "Self-published material may be used in biographies of living persons only if written by the subject himself." Therefore, our biography of David Miscavige may only utilize self-published material to the extent that it is published by David Miscavige. There's nothing "unclear" about it. John254 22:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

So to clarify this based on John254's posting, the problem isn't the matter of where the interview is hosted, it's the use of an interview to cite assertions about 3rd parties in a BLP situation because all interviews are self-published sources. And he did this once, so we need to chastise him? If so, that seems like a very thin reason for an ArbCom admonition. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem is exactly where the interview is hosted, since blogs are ordinarily considered to be self-published by the blogger. The claim that "all interviews are self-published sources" is incorrect -- for instance, if an interview is reported in a newspaper, it is not self-published. While Cirt only used a blog as a source for controversial information concerning a living person once [55], he also added salacious tabloid-sourced gossip concerning living people to an article twice [56] [57], citing sources that expressly described the matter as factually-questionable tabloid gossip. In all of these cases, the WP:BLP violations did not appear to be the result of simple mistakes, such as misreading a diff: Cirt appeared to be aware of the character of the material in question. When considered collectively, these violations of the biographies of living persons policy are a matter of considerable concern. John254 23:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The matter of whether an interview published in a blog is reliable or not seems unsettled, based on the postings I've copied above. As for whether interviews should be used as sources for the actions or words of third-parties, that seems somewhat more established, but it's still not a black-and-white matter. This certainly doesn't appear to be sufficient cause for an ArbCom admonition, though I understand that editors with a vendetta against this user feel differently. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Cirt reminded

1) Cirt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is reminded of the need to comply with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy at all times.

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Proposed. Kirill ^(prof) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Insufficiently supported by the evidence; see above. Durova^Charge! 19:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Insufficient. It needs some wording about the consequences of not compliance in the future. Otherwise this has no teeth. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Support - Acknowledging that the "spirit" of a policy isn't always as unambiguous as we would probably like. John Carter (talk) 17:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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Cirt reminded 2.0

2) Cirt (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is reminded to edit in compliance with the biographies of living persons policy, and to seek assistance in cases where the specific application of the policy is less than clear. John Carter (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

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@John254: Cirt (and any other admin, for that matter) cannot exercise any admin rights in any article he is actively editing. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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Proposed. Phrasing acknowledges what seems to have been a case of misapplying the policy in a way several individuals have done, but does not appear to penalize Cirt for what seems to be a fairly common mistake. John Carter (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

From whom, exactly, should Cirt "seek assistance in cases where the specific application of the policy is less than clear"? As an administrator and OTRS member, he should be an expert on the biographies of living persons policy. Even if Cirt's WP:BLP violations were "a fairly common mistake" for editors as a whole, they would still be quite uncommon for editors holding his positions of authority to enforce the policy. John254 01:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Jossi: ordinarily, that would be correct; however, Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material provides an exception to the general involved administrator rule for the removal of the type of inadequately referenced controversial information that Cirt added to articles: "Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves." So, by those standards, it appears that Cirt should have blocked himself :) John254 02:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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