Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy/Proposed decision

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Sourcing Adjudication Board and Expedited sanctions Proposal

There is no opposition ONLY if the sourcing adjudication board were limited to only determining if an editor has engaged in misrepresentation of sources or their content - several editors including myself agree entirely with this part, and would be ready to support such an idea.

However, there is substantial concern that the remainder is too dangerously close to giving the ArbCom, or any body at Wikipedia, the power to to rule on content. The replies to this proposal at the workshop indicate 4-5 other independent editors voiced the same concerns I pointed out there. There is no consensus, and probably never will be for this.

It is impossible for any such board to be selected in such a way to have the required level of knowledge and experience to be in a position to issue such findings on whether an editor has used unrealiable or inappropriate sources (this may also fall under the category of whether an editor has otherwise substantially violated any portion of the sourcing policies and guidelines). Indeed, it would no doubt have a disturbing effect on the entire project and its contributors, and will bring Wikipedia into disrepute.

The proposal is therefore neither practical and would no doubt compound this project's problems rather than reduce them - it is more problematic than the current system for these reasons, among others that are generally not spoken of. Therefore, the ArbCom is requested to carefully consider the implications and impact of such a proposal being enacted, and to make the right decision by modifying the proposal in the way specified prior to accepting it, or if this is problematic too, to reject/oppose it entirely. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree - provided the SAB was liberal in its use of the magic words "I don't know", "Not sure", and so on, we're safe enough. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

A mere liberal use of "I don't know" and "Not sure" isn't going to be helpful or effective. Misrepresentation of sources alone is ok because it is reasonably precise, in the same way when we look into an editor's conduct here. The remainder is not something that can be (or should be) determined as a matter of authority by any body for Wikipedia - unfortunately, their capabilities would be too limited (and their judgement would easily be too subjective) to rightfully make these sort of findings that are essentially on content, which is among the reasons why no such authority exists for content findings. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I understand your objection, then. Isn't the board's purpose to deptermine when sources are being misrepresented or abused? To do that, some judgement on the quality of the sources is necessary, as using a poor-quality source to make grand claims of fact is an abuse of source just as much as lying about its content. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It is the very judgement on the quality of sources that is questioned - particularly for subject-matter that is less-known. Such a body is in no way qualified, knowledgable or experienced to make judgements on the quality of sources and whether they are considered reputed, particularly on such subjects, topics, sub-topics etc. that they know nothing about. Identifying an abuse of source is essentially making a ruling on content. I know the type of editors this remedy attempts to target (and I'm pleased that it does, having been involved with a few such editors in a cultural-content dispute in the recent past), but this approach is ineffective and open to more problems than solutions. Wheras, merely checking if a source is being misrepresented is something that is well within such a board's capabilities. This is why there is objection to this proposal overall. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can see your point, but at the same time, if well-selected and with a cadre of advisers, it could be helpful. I'd suggest using it cautiously at first, of course. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The overall positive of having this sourcing board will outweigh the negative. And let us not forget that, if selected properly, this board will have people on it that will actually know what a good source is and isn't. I don't foresee this dealing with people wanting to use some crappy blog in a BLP (but it may), but mostly with people using academic journals to further extraordinary claims. If the people on the SAB are familiar with academic journals, ie people who work with and around them, they will not have to have any great knowledge about a particular topic because they will know a good or bad source when they see one. Baegis (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no they won't necessarily know what a good source is and isn't in certain situations (I know this having been involved in one in the recent past as I noted above). As it is, the RS noticeboard, among other avenues, deal with these sort of issues, and what is unclear there, is not going to be any different to what is unclear to such a board - and to give them authority to point out the obvious, or worse, if they pretended they do know...I don't think I need to describe how disturbed some are by the proposal. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment. I am deeply disturbed by the proposal to move what is normally within working consensus, and the discretion of admins reviewing a situation (in cases where sanctions or blocks may be needed), to a ruling board of any sort. We don't need such a body to tell us when the use of sources is dishonest, nor to tell us it's OK to sanction people engaging in such disruption. On that note, I must sharply disagree with some dissent based on concerns about adjudicating "content issues". There's a world of difference between sanctioning users for false citations and intervening for one side or another in a content dispute. Vassyana (talk) 18:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm un-involved in this topic, but such procedures in the academic world usually get involved with who is the greater expert. In this case, where its the relative weight of minor academic sources, and non-academic one, vs. the academic consensus, it's a matter of policy, not factual determination. If the board is academics, i know what they'll say, if it's partly such, they'll never decide. This is a question that needs common sense and balance and compromise, not expertise. DGG (talk) 19:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely agree with that counterpoint. Vassyana (talk) 10:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

My view on this is the same as it has always been. For any controversial article, give a small group of co-operative, productive editors (ie. editors with a good track record, preferably including some that are completely new to the article, as well as some with experience in editing the topic area) a few months peace and quiet to produce a featured-standard article, addressing all aspects of the article (not just the controversial bits), and that alone will be enough to damp down much of the problems. Once sufficient weight of good content has been built up, it is much easier to defend against bad-faith changes, and much easier to spot deceptive changes and deceptive content-sourcing. Extensive organisation of talk pages, with FAQs and explanations, also helps. I believe User:Filll has written an essay about this approach, which worked at (I think) evolution. See User:Filll/essaydraft. Carcharoth (talk) 23:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As good as the idea of building the articles up to withstand the pressure to change might be, getting the articles to that point are going to be difficult at best, impossible at worst. Some of these articles are so far gone that getting them to the level of even a GA is going to take a monumental effort on the hands of several editors. Look at the current homeopathy article. It was a GA before all of this madness ensued. Now, it won't even make that. The sourcing board will help in getting these articles to a respectable level more than any determined group of editors. Baegis (talk) 17:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you point (diff) to a "best" GA version from "before the madness"?--TheNautilus (talk) 21:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana Ullman

I think a one year topic ban from homeopathy, broadly construed, would be sufficient. If Dana wants help edit SS Edmund Fitzgerald, I very much doubt that would cause a problem. Jehochman ^Talk 13:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. It's hard to tell as he never has edited anything not directly related to homeopathy or to add promotion of homeopathy, as far as I know. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case the two ideas are equivalent, but the softer one will draw less criticism. Jehochman ^Talk 15:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

One year *and* probation when the ban ends --Enric Naval (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

If he would only get a one year topic ban, allowances need to be made for what would happen when he returns. Chances are, this behavior is going to repeat itself. It already did once, after his first block was overturned for the mentoring. I would say that he should be placed on 1RR (maybe 0RR) for homeopathy articles and must discuss all changes on the talk page first, but those were pretty much the restrictions everyone was operating on during the probation and Dana still managed to cause a disturbance. We can't have him be mentored again, because that won't work. I would just hate to run into this same problem in May of 2009. It's a safe bet that he is not going to see the light and adopt to policies after a one year hiatus on the homeopathy articles if he couldn't do it under the eye of several admins who were watching the probation of the homeopathy articles. Any ideas on that one? Baegis (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Indefinite ban from all homeopathy, broadly construed, to be lifted on appeal to arbcom after X months of good editing in other fields? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's probably a better idea. And the appeal should not happen until at least 12 months have passed. 18 months might be better, but the community might be more comfortable with 12. And since Dana has shown an inability to just drop the stick and back away, the appeals should not be able to happen more than once every few months, or the ArbCom will be badgered endlessly. Baegis (talk) 17:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That would be a nice idea. Dana should show on other places of the wikipedia that this time he is really going to abide to the policies before letting him back again into Homeopathy, a topic where he has COI. Agree with reasons above. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Past experience shows that if he has access to the talk pages of these articles, people like Dana can still cause substantial disruption. In fact, I think the biggest disruption on Homeopathy and related articles was that Dana and assorted allies (meat puppets and possibly sock puppets) turned the talk pages into toxic environments that had to be frequently archived and drove off all productive contributors. It would not matter if he never edited the mainspace page; by virtue of the fact that he WP:OWNed the talk pages, a substantial disruption followed. --Filll (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, since I think Tim Vickers just accidentally handed him permission to go about recruiting other people to argue his points for him [1] Perhaps the full block is best. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, there is nothing in the current restrictions that prevent Dana discussing the topic of homeopathy on other users' talkpages. However, suggesting specific edits would not be acceptable under the current restrictions, since this would be editing by proxy. If I'm mistaken in my interpretation of this, please let me know, so I can correct my advice. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, however, looking at past behaviour by Dana.... If Dana encouraged an editor to go to a homeopathy-related article to "counter bias introduced by anti-homeopathy editors" or similar reasons, would that be a violation of the restrictions? And what about if he sends mail outside of wikipedia making the same thing? (tricky question, I know) --Enric Naval (talk) 18:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Off-Wiki actions are not something we can or should try to control. As to canvassing, I'd think that if Dana only contacted people with a pro-homeopathy viewpoint, that would be unacceptable, but if he made general posts on Wikiproject talkpages or noticeboards, that would not be an attempt to recruit like-minded people and bias a community consensus. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I can live with that --Enric Naval (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The vast majority of editors of the homeopathy article have not shown adequate efforts to maintain a NPOV encyclopedia body of knowledge. The homeopathy article was a mess before I arrived (I only began editing on the homeopathy article in January). The article was so biased against homeopathy that there weren't ANY external links to leading national or international homeopathic organizations. The only links were to anti-homeopathic information and organizations. Further, the most vocal and active editors consider homeopathy as "pseudoscience" and "quackery," and they have worked hard to keep references to meta-analyses that have shown positive results towards homeopathy out of the article, even if these reviews of research were published in the Lancet or the Cochrane Report or other high-impact journals. I have had to edit within a very hostile environment, and yet, I have successfully worked with various editors to create positive changes. Sometimes I have been successful and sometimes I haven't been. While I have made some mistakes, I have made many more beneficial contributions. The fact that some editors have targeted me is more evidence of their own strong POV-pushing because I have sought to be civil in an uncivil envirnment and I have sought to provide references to research in an environment that hasn't accepted even the high quality research published in high impact journals. Ultimately, I feel wikipedia needs the voice that I bring, and hopefully, the Arb committee will encourage ALL editors to maintain a NPOV attitude. I sincerely believe that I am not deserve a topic ban or an edit ban, though I am open to a mentoring with an uninvolved admin. It is also my hope that some uninvolved admins watch ALL editors in the homeopathy article (I think that s/he will be shocked at the antagonism to see what happens there). DanaUllman^Talk 00:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana, you were already mentored once after an indef block was lifted, and the mentor said that you were ready and that later actions by you would be your own responsability. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I do not believe that I should be punished, my suggestion above was that my mentorship was short and my active editing here has only been for a couple of months. I have remained civil, have not edit warred, and have found consensus changes. A ban or a topic banning for a year is over-kill. If you look at the Evidence page, several editors have over 1,000 words (one has 7,900 words). Clearly, this is a strong effort to throw as much mud against the wall as possible in hopes that some of it sticks. I hope that the Arb committee has some thoughts on what punishment should be consider for those editors who actively work against NPOV information. DanaUllman^Talk 13:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana, you need to update your excuses. You have editing for 4 months[2], and people here know that LaraLove said that you were ready to go on your own after the mentorship (aka stop playing the victim/newbie) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana, step back for a minute and consider that possibly ArbCom does have "some thoughts on what punishment should be considered for those editors who actively work against NPOV information," and that they consider you to be such an editor. That, along with your inability so far to realize this, is why they are considering banning you. It might not be too late to save yourself if you can realize that problem and attempt to rectify it. --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Infophile, I certainly realize that you and some other editors can see me as the POV-pusher (that is quite obvious to me...my apologies if I didn't make acknowledgement of this obvious assumption). However, this is a bit like whether a person is a "freedom fighter" or a "terrorist"; a person is one or the other, depending on your own POV. I made a strong case above for the fact that the homeopathy article was so anti-homeopathy that there weren't even any external links to leading homeopathic organizations. Further, there are no references to several meta-analyses published in high-impact journals, let alone that Lancet editorial. And still, no editor has responded and brought this information to the article, let alone the Talk page. If the "anti-homeopathy" editors were really interested in NPOV, they would want to bring both positive and negative high-quality meta-analyses to the article. My point is that I have simply sought to be these information forward, and instead of dialogue, I am being muted. Finally, I want to say that I would prefer to avoid the terms "anti-homeopathy" and "pro-homeopathy" editors because ideally all editors should strive for NPOV. I am not interested in a 50/50 "balance." I'm interested in having reference to and description of high quality and notable research that has good secondary sources. Sadly, I have found that many editors here only want these standards when the results are "negative" to homeopathy. THAT is my point...and to make things worse, these editors have cleverly ganged up upon me, and while I have made some errors, these errors are hardly significant to deserve serious banning, especially when gang anti-homeopathy behavior is self-evident, loud, persistent, has a lot more wiki-experience, and has a lot more time than I do to post diffs. Finally, I would certainly deserve punishment if both sides of the argument were critical of my editing, as was the case with Randy Blackamor (sp?), but this is certainly not the case. DanaUllman^Talk 00:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You are still citing that Lancet editorial again even after I quoted all of it and showed that it called Homeopathy absurd, and said that surely the effect must be due to other causes. This is why you are getting lambasted, Ullman: Even when shown to be wrong, that a source cannot be used as an unambiguous praise for homeopathy, you simply ignore that, and keep pushing for it, or claim that you didn't really mean it that way, or that the critical parts don't matter, or that...

In short, after you were caught out misrepresenting source after source, and even after being caught out, you continue to push for your original interpretation of them, there is no way we can trust anything you say about one. If you want positive labels applied to you, being shown wrong over and over is not going to help. WP:CIVIL includes as incivility "Lies; deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page so as to mislead one or more editors." If we accept that, then you, as someone who lies about or misrepresents a source pretty much every time you talk about one, must count as on e of the most uncivil editors on Wikipedia. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

My personal apologies to the Arb committee for having these pages turn into another content dispute drama. The above statement by Shoemaker's Holiday provides strong evidence of the attitude, the antagonism, the misrepresentations, and the stonewalling that are observed on a regular basis from him and many other editors. It is not ironic that Shoemaker claims that I misrepresent sources because this seems to be his strategy: to misrepresent information and to then claim that I do so. The fact that he even asserts that I "lie" is EXTREMELY offensive and inaccurate. This is this type of uncivil behavior that is common and that should not be tolerated. I urge Arb committee members to read the short Lancet editorial and judge for yourself [3]. It would seem that wikipedia's NPOV policy should honor the RESULTS of high quality research rather than one's theoretical and philosophical assumption that homeopathy may be absurd. While the Lancet certainly acknowledges that the homeopathic principle of dilutions may be "absurd," it also asserts, "Irrational scepticism is characterised by an inability to accept the category of the absurd." The anti-homeopathy editors are being irrationally skeptical, and worse, they are ignoring and refusing to even acknowledge the scientific evidence. After the Reilly team published their 1994 study, they then published a 4th trial in the BMJ, with similarly significant results...and the BMJ published a strong editorial acknowledging that, "Homoeopathic dilutions may be better than placebo." The entirety of the BMJ's editorial is also posted here.[4] If the editors who are attacking me really want NPOV information on wikipedia, why are these two editorials and their accompanied research an integral part of the article? DanaUllman^Talk 16:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana, you were caught misrepresenting Scientizzle support for inclusion of the Frass/CHEST paper about 10 days ago. Remember? You know, that time when you got topic banned for 6 months 3 months from editing any article related your area of expertise in RL, I hope you didn't forgetn since the ban message is still on your talk page, a few comments above the new section you created. Shoemaker's statement is only a representation of the frustration that you cause on other editors. And, ffs, stop dragging every damned source that could possible wield a positive light on homeopathy if twisted the right way accross the arbitration page. We are trying to have a discussion on behaviour. Leave the content disputes at the door. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Ullman, that sentence you quote about irrational skepticism has a reference to a paper that specifically defines irrational. skepticism as THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what you are trying to define it as. In short, that paper names irrational skepticism to include the insistence of testing of hypotheses that have almost no chance of being true, and names homeopathy as an example of such a hypothesis. In short, you have just misrepresented the source... again. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I just want to remind everyone that this page is for discussing the proposed decision. We were on track for a bit, but the current road this conversation is traveling would belong on the evidence page, not this page. Baegis (talk) 19:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Baegis, though I do feel compelled to correct some above errors of fact. First, I was not topic banned for 6 months (it was 3 months). Second, Scientizzle wrote several contradicting statements. I seem to have misinterpreted him, but his varying statements were confusing. As for rational or irrational, let's avoid OR...what did the FOUR Reilly trials find? Let's avoid OR...let's focus on the data! As for behavior, the anti-homeopathic gang is stonewalling good research in high-impact journals that even have editorial support. I hope that the Arb committee is observing this unrepetent behavior. It is astonishing that they are making me the bad guy. DanaUllman^Talk 19:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence page, evidence page, evidence page, evidence talk page, evidence page. Please, no more unless it is specific to the proposed decision, ie the part about you being blocked for a year. Discuss that, but please no more, from anyone, about homeopathic research. This whole conversation has spread over too many pages. Baegis (talk) 20:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

My point above was first that Enric Naval showed bad faith by conveniently mis-stating that I was blocked for 6 months. Mis-statements and over-exaggeration of "disruption" seem to be his strategy for gaming the system here and making it seem like the bad guy. Ultimately, the voice and the resource of information that I bring to wikipedia are important for creating a dynamic encyclopedia that it should be. And then, Baegis plays the "exacberated" editor, ignoring the fact that I am bring up important issues. DanaUllman^Talk 04:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It was a good faith mistake, Dana, you just had to ask me to change it :P I have corrected my post --Enric Naval (talk) 14:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The point is, Dana, that this constant griping is in no way helping you and only hurting any case you could possibly make. You aren't bringing up any important issues that are not already addressed, by you, on the appropriate pages. Baegisthesock (talk) 19:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It is convenient that Enric has chosen to correct his error while in front of the Arb committee, but he seems totally comfortable providing misleading information on the Evidence page. There are too many errors of fact to list, but some of my favorite include his assertion that I used "condescendent edit summaries "Good humble pie" and "Humble pie, yum".[5] And yet, when you read what I actually wrote, I was asserting that all good scientists are humble, and in so doing, I was encouraging ALL of us to be humble. That is not condescension, unless I was only asking that of someone else. He also accuses me of "wikilawyering" when I ask him to stop theorizing and to provide evidence.[6] Asking for a secondary reference is attacked. He points to "math," but if the math is there, why is no RS provided? Which Lancet or BMJ article references this "fact." And yet, Lord help me if I chose to theorize...or if I recommend adding something that doesn't have ALL of the ducks in a perfect row. My request for a secondary reference isn't being contentious; it is asking to avoid a double-standard. Please note that I too abhor that fact that I am compelled to refer to select editors as "anti-homeopathic" editors, but I am compelled by their words and their actions to do so. I sincerely hope that the Arb committee sees their views that homeopathy is "total bunk" or "total quackery" or "pseudo-science" are part and parcel of an extreme POV that needs to be avoided in order to create a NPOV encyclopedia. If you are going to live with these extremists, you need to have some editors who are CIVIL and who use RS, N, V, and secondary sources to help create a real encyclopedia here. DanaUllman^Talk 22:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's your interpretation of the evidence, Dana. The diffs are there for arbitrators to judge themselves. The rest of your post amounts to wikilawyering, to not hearing the explanations that were already given about the simple math behind dilutions calculations, and to trying to discredit people who disagrees with you --Enric Naval (talk) 03:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom can't rule on content, therefore ArbCom shouldn't be able to create by fiat another group that can

Headline says it all. The proposal to create such a group exceeds the Commitee's mandate, as far as I can tell. Oops, nevermind! per below. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

So who can? This is a major problem, to object to what group is proposing a viable solution seems... pedantic. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

See above. There is already a viable solution. Kick all the current editors out and get (good) new ones in. Make the article good enough to withstand the normal pressures, and then let the crowds back (including those holding extreme views). Carcharoth (talk) 07:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Arbcom ought to have somewhere they can go to get a ruling on the more obvious content issues. It can lead to some very stupid decisions in cases otherwise. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

While, as I've pointed out earlier, I think the proposal is well intended, it still undermines the entire Wikipedia philosophy, hence (I presume) the opposition by others. It's certainly not a solution to the problem, though, it is a clear attempt. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the proper solution is clearly delineating between content and behavior issues, devolving responsibility on the community. Vassyana (talk) 09:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, though care needs to be taken in determining the exact wording of the approach, it is more of a solution. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

In regards to "who can" -- the community can, and the ArbCom is certainly within its rights as a respected part of the community to recommend the rest of us create a Sourcing Adjudication Committee, or even just one unique to homeopathy. It's not a terrible idea, it may not be a great idea either, but it's a novelty. ArbCom simply isn't chartered to create new parallel institutions, no matter how limited their scope, upon a whim. This needs to be created under the community's auspices. -- Kendrick7^talk 17:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I'd certainly prefer that the community explore such novel approaches itself; but, as I've commented elsewhere, I'm convinced that the community is not, at the moment, capable of going beyond mere endless debate and actually enacting any significant change to policy.

The role of the Committee in this case, as I see it, is to jump-start the apparently stalled community process for dealing with such things by applying a (possibly provisional) stop-gap measure. It may well be that the community, displeased with this measure, will develop some alternative approach to replace it, and I have no doubt of the community's prerogative to do so; but I don't believe it's feasible for us to continue down a path where the Committee is unwilling to try new things and the community unable to.

(As far as pseudo-constitutional semantics go, it's not clear what precisely our mandate in this area is. The Committee has traditionally voluntarily avoided ruling on matters related to content at least as much due to our own understanding that we're not really suited for doings so as due to any lack of mandate for it. Creating a body actually competent to make such determinations would avoid that issue. But this is mere semantics, and I don't really see any benefit to arguing over them rather than over what we're actually proposing.) Kirill ^(prof) 01:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Gee, right you are. I'd be left with the impression thru sheer repetition that not ruling on content was a hard and fast rule, but on review I was mistaken. So, OK then, this Sources Committee is definitely worth a shot. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

One minor point, though: the current proposal gives one month for the board to be set up from the time of closure of the case. I'm not entirely convinced that would be sufficient time to organise. Perhaps the language should be changed to include words like "test outing", "experimental" or "first attempt" with regards to the board that will be operating in one month.

View on Sourcing Adjudication Board

In a way, this is not far from an approach I've been looking into in the background, to do with long-standing NPOV issues. I've been examining heavy duty content disputes from the viewpoint of "how do we better achieve these goals within the current Wiki ethos and communal approach", which might shed light on this proposal too.

Basically we can handle almost all content issues internally, if editor conduct is good (collaboration not edit warring, and so on). The problem is, some cases are genuinely difficult. RFAR/Franco-Mongol alliance was one -- a user quoting obscure books that were hard to check, selectively quoting or mis-balanced, and some synthesis. We had to go to the library (as a committee) to check for ourselves if he was researching well, or improperly. It went on for a long time, caused problems, did considerable damage. So I agree, there may well be cases where we really do need firmer resolution on such matters.

The main issue we need to watch for is this: - Content, ideally, can always be improved, and can be adapted as our communal knowledge and input changes and grows, new editors come along. So proposals like "content arbitration" have always floundered in two areas for me -- the risk of fossilization of content decisions, and that consensus as an approach is only set aside in extremis.

Offset that problem, against the risk of bad content or perennial misinformation though, and in some cases it'll be useful to have a way to nail sourcing disputes down a bit. But we would have to be extremely careful in how we do it, to avoid serious problems like these:

1. Content must always be able to be improved. The prospect of edit warriors or OWNers, arguing that "You can't edit this or say that, because the Sourcing Board said so or decided it, in 2002" is a real problem, if we move to any kind of arbitrated content.
2. Every last edit warrior with a point of view to push, will try to be on it, or influence it. We need to take care in selection and avoiding bias.
3. We would have to be exceedingly careful about what such a move could do to the wiki ethos. We've always been a community that resolved things by collaboration wherever possible. We need to not change that - not become a top down system to the extent that "nobody not on the sourcing committee gets a say". Like arbitration it's a last resort, for worst cases only. A move like this could possibly start a ball rolling that would lead to communal disenfranchizement in 5 years time if taken to an extreme. (On the other hand, if we don't fix sourcing issues, that could a major problem too.) Some will feel strongly that it's yet another lurch (or breach) of "what Wikipedia was intended to be". Then again, other steps that were controversial at the start gained acceptance over time, and the community retained sufficient control.

Designed well -- and a lot of the design work is already done in the NPOV proposal for example... yes. There are ways round these problems. It would be useful. In prior work, they've already been solved in principle, I think. Just be aware, if it's done, then tread very carefully in how its done, and consult widely, and put safeguards in for the community.

Personally, I wouldnt want to commit to doing this without putting in lots of thought, and seeking wide communal input. I'd be fine considering it carefully though, and deciding after thought, whether I'd feel able to recommend it or recommend avoiding it, as may be. But I wouldn't form a final view on its merits, right now, without any further discussion. If I did feel favorable, I'd expect a trial period of some months and a lot of caution to ensure it doesn't harm the project in any way (I suspect similar concerns existed around conduct Arbitration too, at the time). But that said, a commitment to examine it as an approach and see if it's worthwhile, is not unreasonable.

On a brief read, that'd be my first impression. I reserve the right to change though, depending what discussion happens.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

These are all very important points, but ruling on sources would actually help make Wikipedia more open to reasonable contributors as it removes some grounds for obvious abuse. In addition to findings about whether an editor misrepresents sources, I think that rulings like the following would be very helpful:

• "The Journal of XYZ Research is not a reliable source on the topic of XYZ." There are objective criteria for judging such matters, e.g. whether it is indexed by main bibliographical databases, what is the impact factor, etc.
• "The article "A study of XYZ" although published in a highly respected journal in 19xy; has been questioned in many subsequent studies and other groups have failed in reproducing the results." This is harder to establish, but still fairly objective. It is important that some occasional fluke article that has since been refuted isn't still used on Wikipedia.

We should welcome people improving articles, and care should be taken that the sourcing boards findings aren't abused or dogmatically interpreted, but it would help everyone to have some rulings on source usage so that arguments about the basic facts aren't skewed. I could still cite some of these sources as representing the view of XYZ-proponents, but I could no longer claim that they are as scientific sources on par with prestigious mainstream journals of the relevant field. In the end, I think, ruling on source usage is not any more subjective than ruling on user conduct. Merzul (talk) 12:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to FT2 - In essence, these sort of 'difficult' matters are precisely why I foresee (having been in such a matter myself) the board may not be so effective in resolving them. But I'm relieved that you acknowledge the existence of those types of matters, and overall, have rather effectively summarised at least some of the types of concerns that are being raised by such a proposal.

The ArbCom are meanwhile requested to consider codifying a type of solution that clearly delineates between content and behavior issues, devolving responsibility on the community for some time - and are requested to consider its effectiveness. At the very least, the obvius incidents will be dealt with, and there is an opportunity to properly examine such a SAB proposal, with broad community input (including those involved in the 'difficult matters'), as well as that of the committee, to see how it can be done in practice - it is not a mere matter of semantics, they're concerns that certain Wikipedians genuinely consider disturbing if not well-considered in a way specified by FT2, or similar. It is also a major determinant of how successful it would be. The so-far apparently poor level of consideration/discussion on how it would be done is no doubt, one of the more unconscious reasons why such strong opposition exists against the proposal. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• There is an old aphorism that applies to this idea: "An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until eventually they know everything about nothing." If we put an expert on global warming on the board, they will be of no use for the discussions about homeopathy (and vice versa). We may have a few academic librarians around whose expertise is in academic sources generally (DGG appears to be one such), but no other experts would actually be of significant use to this board. Thus I don't think the committee will be able to find qualified editors to staff it. I'm sure they'll find plenty of people who claim to be subject matter experts but aren't, or who are indeed experts in some narrow niche but actually no better than any other editor outside that niche. Since I don't believe the board can be usefully staffed, I don't think it is an idea worth pursuing. GRBerry 02:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Worse than that. See due to the nature of the subject once we remove the homeopathy belivers we are left with a total of maybe one subject expert and I doubt that Professor Edzard Ernst would be interested.Geni 21:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I have great doubts at this point about such a board. I am concerned about it being dominated or "captured" by factions, some "mechanical" misapplication of policy and "science", or simply editors inexperienced in the realities of corporate and institutional biases that are part & parcel of many ad based journals. Ad revenues are greatly enhanced by "impact factor" with some highly biased and faulty studies that are thinly disguised commercial attacks against competitors (individuals, groups, and products) that should never pass any impartial, professionally informed review, all too commonly.--TheNautilus (talk) 15:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect (and I do have a great deal of respect for you), Wikipedia's current policies prioritize prominent academic and peer-reviewed literature as desirable sources. The perception that such sources are in thrall to the pharmaceutical-industrial complex is a valid perspective, but not one which should inform sourcing decisions. MastCell ^Talk 17:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

One of my points is that due to the (self)recognized, and perhaps crisis in, peer review failure rates & COI, source alone is not sufficient. "Quis Custodiet Ipsos WP Custodes", wheat and chaff sorting of bad articles with "good" mastheads, commercially competing factions, and the long term implications of forming such an economically desirable and capturable venue here, are long discussions. I don't think that the Homeopathy RFAR is a good place to solve this, although it may surface the question, again. Such a motion really needs a separate venue for airing fundamental issues, conceptual proposals, and problems.--TheNautilus (talk) 21:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Curb the swelling WP bureaucracy

The WP policies, guidelines and precedents are more and more becoming a byzantine labyrint. When the community encounters a tricky problem it seems that the answer is to create a new narrow ad hoc rule or principle to solve that specific problem. I think that the idea of a permanent Sourcing Adjudication Board should be dropped for these reasons. (I also think that experienced editors should create better navigation tools for the WP policies and guidelines pages. Today it is very hard to start from the main page and click to find your way to the more esoteric pages about the WP regulatory framework.) MaxPont (talk) 07:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions suggestion

As I stated over in the request to apply discretionary sanctions to all pseudoscience/alternative science topics[7], perhaps an RfC would be a helpful addition the decision wording.

eg. "If after a RfC about applying sanctions on the user, allowing for community input and consensus-building, an uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict."

This would go a long way towards preventing abuse by a single administrator, or a small group of administrators. In the very least, it would go a long way towards assuring non-admin users like myself that there's some preemptive checks and balances to the process, rather than all the relief of an appeal being after the fact. Admins would still have discretionary power, but it would be after community advisement.

The RfC also has the benefit of providing the banning/blocking admin with a summary of the issues surrounding the user so they could make an informed decision. The admin could, of course, in their discretion, interpret the RfC anyway they wish and impose their discretionary sanctions, but at least there'd be a discussion on the matter. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

That seems like an excellent suggestion, however, in practice, it seems over-burdensome. Instead, I'd suggest it only apply to long-term blocks, of one month of more, with the possibility of a topic ban during the RfC. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a good suggestion. I think I have something at least as good (sorry I already put it other places, don't mean to cross post but it's relevant):

If you put in discretionary sanctions on paranormal and fringe articles, I suggest that some kind of mentorship should become optional for editors seen as problematic. This would allow an admin whom the person can agree is neutral to become intimately knowledgeable about the user, and thus to have an expert opinion on a user's behavior. A similar situation took place in the case of Dana Ullman, where LaraLove mentored him. It failed. But her giving up on him should have counted heavily in the case. Similarly, if she thought he was ok, it should have factored heavily. If it were ever to become necessary, I, for one, want someone involved who is neutral and actually knows my edits. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It is completely incorrect to say that LaraLove gave up on Dana. She stepped into a difficult situation and made the best out of it. Ultimately, she cannot MAKE Dana understand and apply WP policies. Lara even mentioned in her statement that she still did not think Dana properly grasped the nuances of editing. It was not her job to babysit Dana. Frankly speaking, Dana failed himself during his mentoring. The only thing about Dana that should be counted heavily in his case is the enormous good faith extended by the community to overturn an indef, allow him to be mentored, and still have problems. Careful about your proposal. If every single paranormal editor needs, for lack of a better word, a babysitter, is that really helpful? Baegis (talk) 14:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Neal's idea, sanctions can already be imposed by community discussion, without an ArbCom ruling to that effect. I also believe that requiring an RfC for long-term problem editors is unduly burdensome, considering that a normal noticeboard discussion is sufficient to impose sanctions. If a community discussion (including via RfC) concludes sanctions are needed, the acting admin is no longer acting "on his or her own discretion", but simply enacting the decision of the community. The RfC requirement would restrict the ability of the community and sysops to impose sanctions by adding (what I feel is) an unnecessary bureaucratic step/requirement to the process. The last thing Wikipedia needs is more layers of bureaucracy and more red tape hoops.

Regarding Martin's idea, I believe it would be within the spirit of Wikipedia to permit a problematic editor the chance for mentorship, if a neutral and respected established user is willing to mentor and advise the editor in question. Aren't we, as a community, generally reluctant to impose long blocks on prolific editors or to indefinitely block users? (Aren't rhetorical questions pompous? *chuckle*) Providing an honest chance at "rehabilitation" not only fits into the essential spirit of Wikipedia, but also more clearly answers the question of whether or not a particular editor can become a productive net positive to the community by providing a concrete example. It additionally avoids a bureaucratic process, relying on individual circumstances and the specific editors involved. Vassyana (talk) 00:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Pointless with Sourcing Adjudication Board when good faith editors such as Peter morell are driven away

I was sceptical to the idea of a Sourcing Adjudication Board to begin with. Now it seems that there will not be one single knowledgeable editor from the pro homeo camp left to participate. One of the involved ArbCom parties from the pro science camp Shoemakers Holiday mentioned Peter morell from the pro homeo camp as a reasonable user [[8]]

Now Peter morell has lost his temper, given up and left the homeopathy article [9] [10]

Several other reasonable god faith editors from the pro science camp have also left the article in protest (I don’t have the time to find diffs for that). This is really bad. I hope the ArbCom reconsiders the idea of a Sourcing Adjudication Board as it seems to be doomed to failure before it even starts. MaxPont (talk) 06:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Um, Peter's leaving is unfortunate, and I think we all agree on that, but he never once mentioned, to my knowledge, anything to do with the sourcing adjucation board. I got the impression that it came about over a couple polite messages about incivility poking at his upset over Dana Ullman's topic ban, etc. I'm also not sure it's true to say that others left in protest, at least, without naming who. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I mostly agree with shoemaker here. I no longer track the article simple because I'm tired of the crap, nothing to do with any specific editor, proposal to fix, remedies, or content decisions. However Max has a very good point, the subject needs not just dedicated folks, but those who can manage thier bias well enough to build constructive content. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

a very poor idea

Had this board been intended to just cover Homeopathy, I could have seen the point to it, and thought it is possible experiment for a difficult situation. It is after all possible to find a small number of qualified experts on the subject as a panel.

But Kiril assures me it is intended to cover all subjects--I think that's a total perversion of the spirit of wikipedia, and I sincerely hope the community is persuaded to reverse you and take back the power. What you are essentially proposing to do is establish a small board of censors with a veto power over the contents of all articles. For it does affect all the content--the sourcing is in practice what determines what content is included. You are in one moment totally reversing the basic power structure here--after years of saying that arb com will not involve itself with content, and that this remains something that needs consensus, you are adopting for the demands of a single case the total opposite, calling for the selection of a small body to do the same, and with the most drastic penalties over anyone who departs from it, and no power of appeal from it. Well, I hope we will consider ourselves left with at least the power to abolish it. Before doing something like this, you need a general discussion with the community. I'm surprised at you.

I do not even think its practical. Ican not see how any small group can possibly take such responsibilities and prepare to discharge them honestly. There's nowhere where a small commission has that sort of universal power across all subjects--there are always a large number of editors, divided into subject committees. The only role of the ultimate editor-in-chief or board exercising this function, is to appoint them, and to decide the differences between the different groups.

I don't know anyone else who does things this way. Even in the organization of Citizendium, this power is delegated to what, even in their small organization, is over a hundred experts, grouped into several dozen disciplinary committees, and a fairly large board to resolve difficulties between them.

It's too big a change to adopt by half a dozen people on one committee. This is something that would need very full and general discussion. Arb Com is empowered to decide conduct disputes, and might in an exception take a somewhat broader scope. But this is changing the constitution of the project.. DGG (talk) 03:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC) I am preparing a longer rebuttal. I am truly surprised at you--I can not believe you have thought out the implications.

I'm not sure what has happened to the Committee's wisdom for this case. Only 1 arb. (Paul August) seems to see the implications and problems that come hand-in-hand with this proposal, and at least another (Sam Blacketer) acknowledges an issue in his 2nd vote. Those that allowed this remedy to pass are going to have no one but themselves to blame when they realize the damage that is, or will be caused as a result, as it will outweigh the benefit of enacting such a remedy in the first place. The decline in positive contributions (and the departure of the users who make them), along with the other implications/problems that come with this remedy are going to hurt this project, because it will be equal or greater than the desired decline of those who make not-so positive contributions. It means the project will gradually go into disrepute. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I basically agree with DGG's comments here. The board, with its sweeping authority and very limited accountability, appears to constitute a radical change in the basic Wikipedia model. I think that ArbCom is far exceeding its authority here is contemplating such an idea. There may be some value to it, but such a radical change would need to be discussed and adopted by the community as a whole, as a new policy. The role of ArbCom is to enforce the existing policies, not to make new ones. Nsk92 (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Using this proposal we are asking for formal advice about users conduct in regard to sources. To do this we need to have people that are knowledgeable about the topic or be people that can take the time to research what reliable sources would be in the instances. We regularly examine content matters if they relate to users conduct. I assure you that we in no way want to make editorial content decisions. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That is not what I am reading in the proposed decision. It says: "The Committee shall convene a Sourcing Adjudication Board, consisting of credentialed subject-matter experts insofar as is reasonable, which shall be tasked with examining complaints regarding the inappropriate use of sources on Wikipedia. The Board shall issue findings, directly to the Committee, regarding all questions of source usage." It is not even stated here explicitly that the complaints in question have to be a part of accepted ArbCom cases and that the board would only consider the source usage when explicitly requested by ArbCom. The authority of any such new entity would have to be very narrowly defined not to exceed the existing policies. In fact, I do not believe that ArbCom's mandate allows for creating of such new structures. As written now, the decision reads like a Supreme Court adopting a constitutional amendment and then passing a law to enforce it. Moreover, as a practical matter such a board does not even seem feasible. The range of subjects covered on Wikipedia is increadibly broad. You simply cannot find a group of 20 people who are well-qualified "credentialed subject-matter experts" on all these subjects. If you really want expert advice, you need to request it on a case-by-case basis, from experts familiar with the specific subject at hand. (Even then this would have to be done carefully, only as a part of some ArbCom case and only with a fairly narrow purpose in mind). Finding a group of 20 people who are experts in everything is simply impossible and is not going to solve anything. Nsk92 (talk) 14:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

In other words, you're saying what Kirill has said on his talk page in reply to DGG. So I ask you to consider: why are these replies coming in from these editors who feel so strongly against this remedy, despite being told the same thing? It appears that those in support of the remedy don't see the seemingly clear contradiction between such an intention (not to decide on content disputes) and what the remedy actually says -> it is in dire need of being reworded. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Or you need to see that the people that have drawn the line in the sand about our body not making content decisions is the Arbitration Committee. We clearly understand the need to stay out of making editorial content decisions about articles. Please keep in mind that ArbCom gets asked to make them daily and refuses!! We are looking for ways to help us make better decisions. I think we will find ways to limit the Sourcing Adjudication Board's case load so that it can function. Once the ball gets rolling, then editors can follow the lead of the Sourcing Adjudication Board, and make similar informal determinations. What is happening now is not working. We need to look for better ways to make sure that Wikipedia provide high quality content based on reliable sources. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, to a substantial degree, with "What is happening now is not working. We need to look for better ways to make sure that Wikipedia provide high quality content based on reliable sources." I just don't see ArbCom as the right or in fact as an authorized body to solve this problem. It is a policy problem that requires a policy solution. We do have a proper procedure for adopting new WP policies. You, the other ArbCom members, and other like-minded Wikipedia users are perfectly free to write a policy proposal and try to have it discussed and then adopted by the community through the standard policy approval process. That would be a perfectly fine way of going about it. But what you are suggesting here appears to be, on its face and based on the plain laguage of the ruling, gross overreaching and going significantly beyond ArbCom's mandate. Once "the ball gets rolling", this body will quite possibly assume independent authority, even outside ArbCom's control, start making its own rulings, set its own precedents etc and quite possibly become an enforcement entity in its own right. All this with a very unclear source of its mandate, ground rules, scope of authority, lines of accountability etc. Things like that must be set forth in a policy rather than in an administrative decision. Nsk92 (talk) 16:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any basis or reasoning as to why the intention should not be explicitly stated, or why the limits should not be set. But I think Nsk92 has summed it up too. Once a finding on a content dispute is made by the SAB, I wonder what it is the Committee intends to do in response. Perhaps "the SAB is admonished" or, "the SAB is removed and replaced with so and so" or "we're going to ignore the SAB because they're wrong according to us"? Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Or nothing at all, really. The SAB would issue opinions only (albeit final ones); it has no authority to do anything beyond that. The only provision for such opinions to be enforced (aside from what the community may or may not independently do) is via the Committee's imposition of "appropriate" sanctions. If we don't consider any sanctions to be appropriate, in other words, we can choose not to impose any. Kirill ^(prof) 01:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's made it clearer. But re: "Expedited sanctions" - why won't a case be opened prior to issuing such sanctions - how will it be archived (this is essential to some extent)? Ncmvocalist (talk) 01:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible for a board to contain "credentialed subject-matter experts" unless it is reconstituted with new members at every dispute, so I would presume that either the permanence of the board or its expert nature would fall by the wayside as the proposal is developed into a real entity. [Or perhaps Kirill simply means that they will be experts in something, not necessarily the topic under consideration...in which case that is not much of a qualification.] Christopher Parham (talk) 02:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

And how will their credentials be checked anyway? Just because someone says that they have a PhD in X does not make it so. The great majority of WP editors use nicknames rather than their real names, so there no real way to check their credentials without forcing them to reveal their identity. Nsk92 (talk) 03:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Section break

In response to Kirill. Do I understand it correctly that by saying that the Board's decisions will be final you mean that they will be binding for the ArbCom and that ArbCom will not be able to overrule the Board? If yes, why doesn't that constitute abrogation of its responsibilities on ArbCom's part? Arbcom's authority and its charge comes from the standing Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Arbitration policy. It does not say anything about the possibility of ArbCom ceding a portion of its final authority in matters of findings of fact to another body. What if the Board makes a clearly incorrect decision (say it decides that no misrepresentation of sources has occurred while the majority of the ArbCom members are convinced that there was one)? Who will set the rules under which the Board will operate? Will the ArbCom be able to change these rules if they are inappropriate in some way? If not, how will the rights of editors accused of sourcing violations be guaranteed? Will the Board's deliberations be conducted in private or in public? Will the community at large be able to change the rules under which the Board operates? Shouldn't some of these points be clarified in the proposed ruling on the present case before it is adopted? Nsk92 (talk) 01:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree and completely share these concerns. This Board suppose to judge sources and the editors who use these sources. Expedited sanctions by administrators and Arcomm will be inflicted on "violators". The members of this board will have a much greater influence than Arbcomm itself. I can only wonder who those members of the Board might be... I hope not the users who dispute scholarly books using emails posted on personal blogs, and not the users who blacklist sources they do not like. Seriously, I have posted recently a few questions on the Reliable sources noticeboard. The reply was often as follows: "this is an (un)reliable source because I think so". We do not need a Board that gives such advice. Biophys (talk) 03:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

If the Committee felt that our current processes, such as the Reliable sources noticeboard, were working we would not be looking to supplement the current ones. :-) Personally, I think that the noticeboards can be helpful if the admins or experienced editors take the time to dig into the issue. Because it can be very time consuming, good research does not always happen.

And unfortunately, under our current practices; after doing the research, stating a conclusion, and editing the article, then administrators and experienced editors become involved and can not bring their knowledge to similar incidents without being labeled as too close to the situation. Often an administrator that is knowledgeable about the topic is prevented from using their tools to block users, protect articles, or other actions that might be needed to stop the addition of content from unreliable sources. We are looking for a solution to this problem that will not tamper with the idea that involved admin should not make consensus or editor conduct decisions. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but these are general arguments regarding whether and how well WP:V and WP:RS are working now. I am not arguing that point here. But you have not really answered any of my specific questions regarding the Source Adjudication Board posted above. I did direct them to Kirill as the sponsor of this proposal but if you can shed some light here, I'd much appreciate it.Nsk92 (talk) 16:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the Arbitration Policy says nothing at all regarding delegation of authority, and I don't see any reason or means by which a body with authority could be prohibited from delegating it. If it clarifies the pseudo-constitutional semantics any, you might think of the "final" issue as being equivalent to a statement of intent on our part that we will not overrule the board (without going into the question of whether we would retain a reserve power to do so).

As far as the other questions go: as the remedy states, the manner in which the SAB will actually operate will be determined after the close of the case, in consultation with the community. Kirill ^(prof) 00:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I, too, am uncomfortable with the SAB for many of the reasons that have been stated here. I propose that editorial discretion, as I laid out in my proposals, should be sufficient for almost every case. I guess I may need to dig up more information to decide upon which side of the fence I shall dismount... — Scientizzle 22:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, I am perhaps being slightly dense. You have editors who are edit warring and not respecting consensus, and you wish to instigate a board to look at sourcing? The wiki-process is the decision making mechanism on content, that is a fundamental principle. Where's this coming from? I've come here via CENT, so I'm not fully up to speed on all of this. Hiding T 17:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana Ullman misunderstood

I too would be suspicious of an editor who used the summary "formating" when providing significant changes as you thought was going on here, as noted by user:Sam Blacketer[11] However, those changes that I made in both of those instances WAS formatting. Just minutes before doing THESE minor formating changes, I proposed a larger change, as evidenced here...and that is probably summarized, as "Several important meta-analyses published in RS and notable journals...please review before changing or deleting" [12] This is a perfectly accurate summary, but I screwed up the formating of the references and therefore had to correct them twice. These two edits WERE formating issues to the complex new review of meta-analyses that I provided just previously (in re-doing my edit, I had to delete an entire section of previous NEW information, and then provide correct formating of references. In THIS instance, I urge you to see the good faith efforts here, not anything else. I hope that you will clarify the charge that you have made here because my actions were legitimate and honest. If another editor "alerted" Sam to your previous assumption of bad faith of my part, I hope that Sam and others will reconsider your attitude towards this editor as having an extreme POV and as evidence of someone out to get me. Thanx to user:FT2 for noting this confusion and to helping to correct it (confirming my good faith here). Humbly yours...DanaUllman^Talk 00:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

User:PhilKnight showed good faith in acknowledging his misunderstanding of these edit summaries[13] Thanx Phil. In case Phil's previous inaccurate charges influenced previous Arb committee votes, does anyone have any suggestions for how to convey this info to those who have already voted? I realize that that misunderstanding may have been extremely minor to some people, but it is also possible that it could have shown bad faith on my part IF it were taken as true. When you consider that it seemed to have a strong influence on Sam Blacketer, it is hard to say what influence it had on others. DanaUllman^Talk 02:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Just look at who voted already, and leave a note on their talk pages, pointing them at that diff. If you fear that some of them may not log in into wikipedia in time to see your note before the case closes, then send them an email asking them to look at their talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fiat creation of "SAC" by case remedy is not the way to go

I understand what the Committee hopes to achieve through a Sourcing Adjudication Board - it is basically in line with the governance reform page, or at least its ethos. I think it has some of same problems - a magnet for bureaucracy rather than solutions, a goal that those with an interest in authority can aspire to while those who are, actually, "sourcing experts" might avoid at all costs.

Totally apart from the question of whether it is a valid proposal is the question of whether instituting it this way is the right idea. I would first say that the question of "mandate" is important, and one that will be raised by those subject to this Board at every opportunity - nowhere in the Arbitration policy, that I've seen, is it authorized to create parallel or subordinate committees with authority that supercedes that of any other flagged user. Additionally, even were the community to accept the creation of such a board, I think it would be unwise for the Committee to do it through a remedy on a specific and tangentially related case (i.e. not a case accepted under the premise of examining the broader use of sources and the attendant conflicts). Finally, while a thread about this exists on WP:VPP it looks like this particular remedy is passing and has experienced far, far less scrutiny than most failed policy proposals because it has had virtually no publicity. That, again, is a problem related to legitimacy. If you want something like this Board to actually function, it needs to be created in a way that lends it legitimacy and credibility and this isn't that way. Avruch ^T 00:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I came here from the village pump (policy). I see there are pros and cons to this idea. Perhaps a delay should be implemented so that this proposal can be :circulated more widely. Although my own point of view is that a board of this nature, should primarily deal with disputes that may have legal ramifications, I think that maybe the Foundation board should have the final say on the creation of the new entity as well as the voting system for selecting its members, and the scope of its authority. And, if and when the board is established, I hope that its members be as neutral as possible. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiments expressed by Avruch and DGG. FloNight's observation that "What we've done in the past is not working" may be valid for this particular case, but for the project as a whole what we've done in the past is working. The vast majority of articles move in a general direction of improvement over time with zero Arbcom involvement; the possible benefit of hanging a SAB over them cannot be great, and the risk of screwing things up is real. I could possibly support this idea if the Arbcom were to restrict its application to specific articles in order to remedy specific problems that the community has been unable to resolve, however the thought of an SAB with a broad mandate over all articles is frightening indeed. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing Adjudication Board is a novel, preventative solution to a frequent problem that touches the core mission of the project. The new board has the ability to end content disputes where editors now engage in mild or severe misconduct because of sourcing issues. Currently, the Community has no ability to make a definitive conclusion about the verifiability and reliability of article content. The use (or claimed use) of poor quality sources or the misrepresentation of sources is a frequent cause of disputes. The Arbitration Committee is regularly asked to help sort it out. Although it is a novel solution, it is within the scope of our traditional role. We are the place on Wikipedia where issues are closely examined based on factual evidence; and then, guided by Wikipedia policy, a definitive determination is made. Instead of the Arbitration Committee delving into this issue as individuals, we are putting a body into place to assist us. Obviously, the Sourcing Adjudication Board is not going to be directly involved with the sourcing of every article. The Sourcing Adjudication Board will supplement current practices when they break down. Since it will help end content disputes so that collaborative work can take place, likely the Community will support it once it gets off the ground. Let's think positive, folks. :-) FloNight♥♥♥ 12:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The AC would help the communtiy best by removing individuals who disrupt the consensus process of article development, not by circumventing that process to "resolve" content disputes in a non-consensual manner. I think you make a misleading distinction between content disputes and collaborative work. The point of the consensus building structure is that we can work collaboratively while in content disputes, so long as editors behave appropriately. While placing sanctions on troublesome users tends to improve the consensus process by removing impediments, placing sanctions on specific content (i.e. declaring sources to be "unreliable" or "inappropriate", etc.) will disrupt the consensus process by limiting its scope. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

We find that the issue is not as simple as you make it. The end game for many users is having an article read in their preferred version most of the time. When there is a significant different opinions about the content because of sources, and several users are working to keep their content additions on Wikipedia, then significant problems arise that can not be addressed though our current dispute resolution processes. Both sides of the dispute claim that the other is abusing Wikipedia policy through sourcing. Both sides of the dispute have an endless supply of editors that will change the article to their preferred version. Someone needs to examine the facts and make a definitive determination. Currently, the Arbitration Committee does this in a limited manner. Our attempts to fix the problem in a broader way through article probation has not been successful because (by Community mandate) administrators can not make definitive determinations about consensus. Instead, disagreements about consensus end up in front of ArbCom. The Arbitration Committee is looking for a way to address the issue in a broader way that does not tamper with the idea that administrators DO NOT make content decisions. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Then suggest a "special master" as I thinks it's called in law or a panel of 3 for the particular issue involved without any precedent whatsoever. That's something people might be more willing to participate in. If by any chance it happens to be successful in resolving the issues, and I wouldn't count on it, then something similar can be considered again if the need ever arises. DGG (talk) 18:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm more concerned about instances where a definitive determination of consensus can't be made, because there is no consensus, and in making "definitive determinations" this panel will eliminate the ability to generate one in the future. Final and binding determinations is pretty much antithetical to the process described at WP:CONSENSUS. While the consensus process offers great flexibility in revisiting past decisions, a board making final decisions is not and is unlikely in any case to want to revisit all its past decisions on a regular basis. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

that's the advantage of adhoc committees. There is a need for a final decision, or we spend all or time discussing what has been discussed many times before. In fact, I think that's one of the faults of arb com's present operation--there are too many cases that come back again and again. We can't attain perfection--we should settle an issue, and get on with the rest of the encyclopedia. There are a fair number of places where each of us probably thinks the established consensus is not satisfactory--I know I have my list. If the community went over every challenged issue every 6 months, how would we do anything else? DGG (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Re:FloNight: I'm struck by the fact that you refer to this board as a solution to a "frequent problem." As I tried to point out in my earlier comment, the vast majority of articles tick along fine with ordinary editors working things out amongst themselves and the sourcing guidelines. I suspect that the reason you and I see things so differently is simply that we spend our time looking at different subsets of the project. Arbitrators spend a disproportionate amount of time intensely focused on intractable disputes, whereas for nearly all the articles I'm familiar with, the greatest need is for bold contribution. Kim Bruning once calculated the proportion of "pathological" articles, for which normal dispute resolution processes don't work, and it was tiny, something like 1%. Which means that for the other 99%, there is either no dispute or normal dispute resolution works.

I am concerned about certain core, but fragile, aspects of Wikipedia culture that stand to be eroded by this proposal, such as trusting oneself to be bold, evaluating the edit rather than the editor, and resolving disputes by getting a greater number of people involved. I am very grateful for the difficult work that the Arbitrators do, and I don't want to get in the way of creative solutions to cases, however I look for reassurance that the SAB proposal would have an extremely narrow mandate and affect the fewest articles possible. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbcom has recently proposed more than one committee/commission/working group/board, etc. to address one issue or another. The IRC one seemed to end up going nowhere, IIRC. I'd suggest that this is another idea that is likely to end up in failure. Rather than a fiat board, why not strengthen the respect that is given to credentialed experts in general? That seems a better solution. ++Lar: t/c 20:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

You misremember, I think. :-) ArbCom did not propose a board or committee for IRC. I made a comment on a case page suggesting it as one possible option. There never was a proposal or a plan to form a IRC committee. Want to clear up the confusion since I've noticed some misstatements about it.

If the Committee votes to form a Sourcing Board, one will be formed. Whether it works, only time will tell. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Non-English sources

How will this Board treat Non-English sources? Are you going to keep at last one expert in the Board for every country or language? I was asked to assess Russian sources at several occasions. This is not a trivial task. One should know if a particular national source qualifies as a major national newspaper, a tabloid, or an "extremist site". One should know if a publication was prepared by a respected journalist or by someone who invents stories sitting in his office. Having "national experts" on the Board is a tricky business, becuse many of them would have a nationalistic bias. One possible solution would be to downgrade all non-English sources as less reliable, which I would certainly agree but many others object.

Only fair to mention that most academics can deal with at least one or two other languages.DGG (talk) 19:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this Board will struggle with "mission impossible".Biophys (talk) 21:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this board should address the sourcing policy in general rather than to blacklist specific users? For example, one could suggest some scoring functions for evaluationg sources: personal site - 0; an NGO site or a national newspaper - 1; major international newspaper - 2; an article in scientific peer-reviewed journal - 2 or 3; an academic book - 4? That would help by introducing some objective criteria and discourage people to dispute sources with score "4" using sources with score "0" (I have seen such examples).Biophys (talk) 15:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

A perfect reasonable thing to do. We do this without numbers or formal structure every day at the RS noticeboard. And I point out that one of the issues in this matter may possibly be the relative weight of different peer reviewed journals--interesting controversial things are rarely simple. DGG (talk) 19:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly right. Even in academia, there is a growing problem (especially now that technology made the process of publishing much easier) of proliferation of sources that masquarade as reliable peer-reviewed publications but in reality are not. One category here is the "crank" projects, that are close to pseudo-science but sometimes are somewhat different in nature. Another is various for-profit publication mills that seem to be appearing in greater numbers now. Some of them actually organize various for-profit conferences with huge registration fees where the main point for the organizers is to make a financial profit and where in return the participants can get a quick "publication" in the conference proceedings. There are also a few journals of this kind where contributors are asked to pay huge fees as "publication costs" in return for a quick publication with a perfunctory "review". These kinds of sham conferences/publications are basically ignored by the mainstream academic community but they do exist and their numbers seem to be growing. Even among the non-sham academic publications there is in fact a wide spectrum of publications in terms of prestige, rigour of the review process and reliability. In this respect ArbCom is certainly correct that we do need a better system of discriminating the levels of reliability of various sources. (Although I do believe that any such system should come about through a community effort rather than an administrative ArbCom action). Nsk92 (talk) 21:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I like this idea a lot, as well. I think could be expanded a bit, but I am drawn to the notion of an objective criteria, which would make it easier for neutral evaluators. Lazulilasher (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with DGG that new Board is not required. As about scoring of sources, let me show this real life example. All judgements about the presumably unreliable source (including one by DGG) in this example are subjective. But according to any formal scoring criteria, this site would qualify as a site by an officially registered human rights organization, just like a site of Amnesty International. That would be a reliable source but with a lower score than a publication in "New York Times". Such NGO sites generally do not provide intentionally false information. If they provided an interview with their author (say Pacepa), we can relay that the text is indeed an interview with Pacepa, and it can be cited as Pacepa opinion. Such scoring would make our life much easier. But I can only wonder what this new "Board" would tell about such source...Biophys (talk) 21:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

common sense. read the website. It clearly and obvious declares its nature as an advocacy site in no uncertain terms. Sure, I can find sources that say the same, but its hardly necessary. I spoke not as a specialist; none of the skills of the academic world are necessary to figure out the nature of the David Horowitz Center or frontpagemag.com -- I made some more comments there just now, as I see the discussions is continuing-- on the basis of the non-expert use of my own eyes, to point out what anyone else can see. What is said in an interview depends upon three parties: the person doing the interview, the interviewer, and the publication presenting it. This is exactly the sort of thing the community can judge without experts. Experts or non-experts, anyone not prejudiced in favor of them would say the same about these sources, and any reasonable person who does share their views would agree that they show a particular viewpoint. But people can judge for themselves, and the RS noticeboard is the place to discuss it further. DGG (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't imagine a scoring system that would account for the complexities of choosing good sources and writing faithfully by them. For example, it's difficult to make sweeping statements about the reliability of government and NGO sources, and it often happens that a particular government body is capable of producing some publications that are highly neutral and other publications that are highly biased. And often (and I'm not referring to the Homeopathy case, but to articles in general), the question is not whether a source is reliable, but what it is reliable for. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

But I am talking only about scoring verifiability of sources, not about their "neutrality" or which sources represent the "truth". A study published by a governmental or NGO site may be right or wrong, just as any publication in Nature. Unless they were caught while planting an intentioanl disinformation, an NGO or a governmental site provides 'verifiable data.Biophys (talk) 15:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

How would a Source Board be different from WP:RSN?

Since I see that at least one of the arbs mentioned the PHG case, and I'm very familiar with that one, I thought I'd speak up...

I do like the idea of being able to ban editors who are systematically and tendentiously misusing sources. However, I don't think that a Source Board[14] is the way to go about it. There are just too many topics on Wikipedia, and editor turnover is too high to keep such a Board properly staffed. I think a better solution would be to use the resource we already have, the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, but give it a bit more teeth. Perhaps if an issue comes up, recommend that a more formal "community review" thread be started at RSN, and invite some third-party topic experts to participate in the thread at that time. Like a community ban discussion, uninvolved admins could monitor the debate, and if the community consensus was that an editor was systematically misusing sources, and refusing to moderate their own behavior, then an admin could implement a block, or a topic ban. This would be a much more streamlined way of handling things, it would scale well, it would get the decision more into the realm of people who were qualified to make the decision, and it wouldn't require a lengthy ArbCom case (or more emails in the already clogged ArbCom queue). I do think it would be appropriate for arbitrators (or administrators) to contact trusted community members with expertise in the topic area, and directly ask them to offer an opinion in certain cases. Right now, one of the problems with RSN, is that you can only get the opinions of whoever happens to have the page on their watchlist on a particular day. So it might be useful to maintain a voluntary "list of topic experts", where someone who felt that they had considerable expertise (or access to sources), could volunteer to act as a third opinion in certain cases, but they wouldn't have to scour RSN every day to see if there was something there that needed their attention. For example, anytime there's a dispute related to the Crusades or the Mongols, I've got a couple shelves full of books and a ton of knowledge at Wikipedia's disposal. :) But I don't always monitor the pages (Village Pump, Noticeboards, RFC/Hist, etc.) where there might be a question that I could help with answering. But if someone did ping me on my talkpage, and point me at a discussion, I would be happy to help out. --Elonka 19:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Elonka - it would be preferable to expand the reliable source noticeboard concept, instead of creating a rival process. PhilKnight (talk) 21:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The practical way is that when something is taken to RSN, a notice be placed on the affected articles--and the main editors notified, like we do at AfD or AN/I. DGG (talk) 02:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I like Elonka's suggestions regarding giving the Reliable Sources Noticeboard more teeth. One can take some of these ideas a step further and institute a new step in the dispute resolution process called "Expert Advice", somewhat similar to Third Opinion but more source- and content-oriented. Of course, the main problem here is how to find genuine experts and how to make sure that they give opinions that are unbiased and are seen as unbiased. I agree with Elonka that any group of "experts" needs to be fairly large and community driven. A small standing committee is never going to be sufficient. To start with, it would probably have to be a volunteer group. But one could also think about creating a new category of "resident experts", similar to administrators and bureaucrats and appointed through a similar process. Nsk92 (talk) 03:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for why the arbitrators didn't consider this in the first place, but the reason many editors are disenchanted with RS/N is that it always seems to just be the same people arguing again - we never get any truly new opinions by taking something. A list of volunteer experts, as Elonka suggests, may help to resolve this, but I can see a potential problem if these experts get to be considered biased. For instance, if PHG's issue was brought to the board and Elonka came in as an expert, he'd just disregard her opinion as she's biased against him (in his opinion at least).

Or, let's take how this would work in the case of a subject such as Homeopathy. Almost every mainstream medical expert disregards it as complete nonsense, and these are the people who would be helping out on this board. And so when a homeopathy issue comes up, even if they're acting perfectly impartially, pro-homeopathy editors will disregard their opinions as being biased and request a "neutral" expert. We have to have some way to make sure that this isn't allowed, perhaps such as an extension of NPOV. We shouldn't be forced to balance the mainstream with the fringe.

If the specific example of Homeopathy doesn't quite click in in your mind, imagine that we're instead working with someone who believes the Earth is flat. Any physics expert (or geologist, cartographer, etc.) will immediately disregard this as nonsense, and so the flat earther has an excuse to reject their opinions on sourcing matters. If we're setting this up, we're going to have to clearly state in some way that we're going by mainstream expert opinion here, and their bias against nonsense is not an excuse to consider their opinions on sourcing irrelevant. (Aside: Yes, I am comparing Homeopathy to a belief in a flat earth. It contradicts just as much of biology and chemistry as flat earth does of physics.)

(Okay, I started just thinking along the lines of working with RS/N here, but I guess my primary point could be applied to any potential remedy here.) --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that all pseudoscience should be clearly marked as such in WP. Good flat Earth example! But this is not so simple. Please read Wikipedia:SPOV. Perhaps we need some policy changes to enforce the scientific positions. This Board might decide what is a "mainsteam scientific view" on a certain subject. However, that would only work in natural sciences if the experts are good, but not in history or politics. In political issues, we need a set of formal rules or even scoring functions for sources and decide some policy questions, such as use of "advocacy sites".Biophys (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason Wikipedia:SPOV was rejected was that it's unnecessary. We already have sufficient policies that ensure that when it comes to scientific matters, the mainstream scientific opinion is given the most weight. The problems we get to are when editors claim that there is no scientific consensus, that subjects should receive more positive coverage on their own articles, that articles shouldn't read like debunkings (even on subjects that are obviously pseudoscience), or with editors who just won't give up trying to slant the issue. None of these are clear enough problems that admins are generally comfortable blocking for them (and I wouldn't say that not wanting articles to look like debunkings is really a problem, just a position I disagree with). It takes a long pattern of disruptive behavior to deal with even the most unrelenting POV-pushers. --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed conditions for Sourcing Adjudication Board

If the Committee is determined to create the SAB, can I offer some conditions that I think will help?

a) No member of the Arbitration Committee sits on the SAB

b) The process for obtaining and verifying credentials is transparent (i.e. the requirements and who has met them is set out clearly)

c) The SAB has a fixed probationary term, perhaps six months. At the close of the probationary period, the Committee sets up a community poll to determine the opinion of the community on whether the Board has been successful. If a supermajority (perhaps 66%) are against the Board at that time, the Board is dissolved.

d) Please don't set the Board to working without proper preparation - its processes and types of outcomes, its scope and the method of interacting (between the Board and parties, between parties, between the Board and the ArbCom, etc.) should all be set up and thought out in advance.

I'm willing to say that the Committee can try something like this and see if it works, even if I don't think the way it is being done is a particularly good idea. But I don't want to see it become "Its here and you're stuck with it, even if it doesn't work." I'd like the presumption to be that this is experimental - if it doesn't perform to expectations, it should be closed down like any experiment. Avruch ^T 14:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for being willing to support the idea. :-) I think evaluation of the Board after 6 months is a good idea. Having organized feedback should be part of the evaluation. We can discuss the details of this as part of the Board organizing process. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - conditional to the above being stated. I'd prefer if it's non-binding nature is also stated explicitly, but it may not be necessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I strongly urge the arb com not to try. I think its fairly clear that the community is opposed to the idea altogether in its present form. The reason arb com is effective is because it has broad support. There are simpler ways of dealing with this issue. In fact, having checked back over the previous discussions here, it confirms my view that the actual accusation here is not that serious as to require it. If we did have such a board, i would not be surprised to find that at the end, it gave a rather ambiguous answer, that, although the import of the quotation at issue was misrepresented somewhat, it was not all that much worse than the run of things in contentious topics in Wikipedia discussions. Making it a major issue in this arbitration doesn't seem necessary to solution of the real problems. DGG (talk) 23:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I had a lot of reservations about this idea, including some of those that you have expressed. But I think there is no harm in trying it as a trial (and it being non-binding which it is momentarily anyway) and then reviewing it afterwards. If it is ineffective, the idea can be modified or scrapped accordingly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree that most articles will not need the assistance of the Board. But some topics such as Homeopathy are constantly in low level disputes that flair up into major disruption occasionally. There is going to be enough work for the Board on the topics where the Community has never been able to settle disagreements about sourcing. Again I want to remind you that the Arbitration Committee stays out of most disputes, even most user conduct disputes. We want the Community to handle situations most of the time. But some on the Committee see a need for a new way to address chronic problems that the Community has not been able to work through. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

what you say, unfortunately, amounts to my worst fears for this: "topics constantly in low level disputes" . In other word, this is a proposal to take editing for contentious topics away from the community on a continuing basis. This will no longer be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit--for the difficult topics, it will be the encyclopedia that only certified experts can edit. (and not even experts for the topic, as in citizendium--a review committee expected to do everything--which takes away any possible merit from actual expertise.) If the arb com members cannot handle the minimal problems that the sources question raises here, they should ask help from the existing community. If there are problems elsewhere, they can be dealt with similarly. ArbCom has the right and the responsibility to deal with behavior, but not with upsetting the pillars. If they can't figure out how to handle behaviour while still maintaining the basic principle of Wikipedia, they are admitting they cannot fulfill the role. If it became absolutely necessary to alter the principle of open editing in a particular instance under the principle of IAR, they can deal with that particular instance in the least bureaucratic way possible.. IAR is not for changing the fundamental policy, but for fulfilling it. The detailed method they propose is a clear indication that they have fallen into the trap of finding large-scale bureaucratic solutions for isolated problems. DGG (talk) 20:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I largely agree with what DGG wrote above. Since the questions of general legitimacy (primarily with the WP) community and the effect on changing the basic WP model do not seem to be getting much traction with the ArbCom members, let me raise some specific concerns about functionality of the SAB proposal:

1)Verification of credentials of the SAB members (who are, by and large, expected to be "credentialed subject-matter experts") is not practical. The great majority of the WP users do not use their real names when editing Wikipedia, and it would be unfair and highly problematic to force them to reveal their identity for the purposes of credentials verification. If ArbCom restricts the SAB membership to only those users who have already chosen to reveal their identities, it will severely limit the pool of expertise available. Moreover, given the contentious nature of many disputes that reach the ArbCom level, it will also potentially expose the SAB members to real world harrasment, legal threats etc. The only realistic possibility of evaluating anyone's expertise seems to me to be in looking at their past editing history.

2)Size of the Board. As someone who sat through a great many committee meetings in my life, I am of the opinion that no committee above the size of 15, at the very very most 20, people can function effectively without very substantial extra stuff and logistical support (which will not be available here). This means that the Board will necessarily have to be fairly small, perhaps 12-15 people or so. Therefore there will be huge gaps in the topics covered by the areas of expertise of the Board members. It is simply impossible to predict what kind of specific expert advice ArbCom might need and there will be loads of cases where the SAB members do not know anything about a specific subject at hand. Moreover, even where there will be a relevant expert on the Board, it will probably be just one or two people and the other Board members will largely have to follow their lead. That would seem to put too much power in the hands of a small number (maybe even one) of appointed experts over source disputes on Wikipedia.

In practice, the most you can hope to get with the Board is a group of people who understand well the basic distinctions between various types of sources, such as self-published material, articles in well-established and peer-reviewed scholarly journals, articles in journals with low standing and perfunctory refereeing practices, for-fee publication mills, vanity press outfits, etc. You can't really expect much more than that. However, this means that in most cases SAB members will not be in a position to offer an opinion that is any more weighty or valid than the opinion of the ArbCom members themselves (who, I would hope, understand the above mentioned distinctions between various source types anyway). Therefore to give SAB anything other than purely advisory power would be a mistake.

If ArbCom really needs consultations and opinions on sources, you should seek them on a case-by-case basis from experts in the broader community (rather than from a fixed small standing committee), and then make up your own minds regarding what to do with the advice received.

Having said all of this, I believe that some kind of a community-driven system of providing and obtaing expert advice, that follows the basic spirit of Wikipedia, is much more appropriate than a small unelected committee of administratively appointed experts. Nsk92 (talk) 21:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with DGG and Nsk92. Indeed, we have a problem with evaluation of sources, because the personal judgments about the sources are extremely subjective, including judgments at RS noticeboard. By creating the Board we make this problem bigger because such subjective judgments will become a law. We have to move in the opposite direction: to make a system of formal scoring of reliability of sources simply based on their type: a personal site by a researcher/academic; a site by a political advocacy group; a local newspaper; a major news outlet; an article in a scientific peer reviewed journal; a published (not self-published) book; a book published by an academic or by a recognized expert on the subject, and so on. Such scoring would indeed simplified our life and life of Arbcomm. I do not think you need this burden of the Board.Biophys (talk) 13:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

to illistrate the problems, such a scoring system would be naïve: in all cases, it depends on the actual use of the material and the exact nature and standing of the source--the delusion that all peer reviewed journals are equally reliable is a part of the problem, as is (in my opinion) the view that all personal web sites are equally unreliable. I wouldn't attempt to judge these things on an overall basis with a single board of people, and I wouldn't trust any global pronouncements on this. DGG (talk) 22:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Good comment! Yes, not all peer reviewed journals are equally reliable. Moreover, some widely cited publications in the best scientific journal Nature were simply wrong and have been officially retracted by authors. But the typical wikipedian is not a specialist. He can not (and should not!) decide which of two academic sources in Nature is more reliable than another, assuming that none of the sources has been officially retracted. He needs to know if a source qualifies as a reliable source, and the answer is definitely "yes" (it could score "3" for an article in Nature). Now, let's assume that someone posts a note on his personal blog challenging the work of a scientist published in Nature (this is a real life example). That another source (a personal site) would score "0" or "1". That would send a strong message that sources with a reliability score of 0 or 1 should not be used to discredit sources with reliability of 3. Perhaps I am very naive, and people can propose some better ideas. But I think we need some very simple, formal and objective rules on sources rather than subjective and arbitrary judgments by a Board.Biophys (talk) 03:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I think, in practice, that the concern about subjective judgments is overstated. I would imagine that such a board would work, roughly, by having the most direct expert on the subject look at the sources and prepare a report on the sourcing in question. The rest of the committee would presumably review that report. I think, for the ost part, this would work and be non-arbitrary - I may be primarily an expert on literary theory and academic study of popular culture, but in the course of becoming reasonably well-credentialed in these areas I have learned a lot about sourcing in general - not necessarily enough that I'm the best person to evaluate a source in a theoretical physics article, but certainly enough to look over somebody else's evaluation and see if it generally holds water without having that judgment be arbitrary. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, review by people outside the field is a good idea. This is already the practice, and the comments on the RS noticeboard come, pretty much, from the sort of people whom you have in mind. As you say, working on sourcing here and listening to what people say & learning from them gives a good idea of what to do. Just as you have learned, so do others. (But as for oversimplified numerical judgements, to take the very example uses, Nature has published Peter Duesberg's work on AIDS, and the article on Anomolous water. There are no rules that can be reduced to numbers this way.) DGG (talk) 11:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

But this is covered by existing WP policies. Remember, "verifiability, not truth". A concept described in Nature was totally wrong, but the source was perfectly verifiable. Hence we can describe this wrong concept (ref. to the original article in Nature which is a reliable (verifiable) source) and tell that the concept was wrong (references to later publications). I think real problems are different. First propblem is deletions of perfectly sourced and relevant texts supported by reliable (verifiable) sources like in this example. The source is a book by Pete Earley, which is certainly a reliable (verifiable) source. Second problem is insertions of unverifiable information from personal sites like in this example. This is not a reliable source, simply because it has no any editorial oversight, no mattter if author helds a PhD degree or not. How the Adjudication Board would handle such cases? I would think this is more a general policy matter. Most important, this Board should only assess verifiability of sources rather that judge if they represent the "truth". The latter would be against WP policies. Biophys (talk) 14:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

DanaUllman blocked

DanaUllman was placed under a topic ban (under the aegis of the community-founded probation on homeopathy topics) and warned about circumventing it.[15][16] Despite his topic ban and the additional warning, he still participated in homeopathy-related topics.[17][18][19] As such, I implemented an indefinite block, pending the resolution of this arbitration case. I am posting this message so that the arbitrators and clerks are aware of the situation and Dana's inability to participate direct in the arbitration pages. Vassyana (talk) 09:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. I emailed the rest of the Committee about the indef block. Was this intended to be an indef block that is the equivalent to a Community ban? Or did you assume that DanaUllman was going to get an one year ban from the Committee and made the block now to address a current issue; and not knowing when the case would close, used indef as the length. The difference is that at the end of our one year ban in one instance DanaUllman would be automatically unblocked, while in the other instance the account would not be unblocked unless an administrator agrees to unblock and bring DanaUllman back. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It was intended simply to last until the resolution of this case, not knowing when the case would close. It was intended to address the current issue. The community can always additionally impose return conditions or an indefinite ban, if the need is felt. Vassyana (talk) 19:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for making your intent clear. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In light of this edit, I endorse this block. I previously told Dana that he could discuss the topic on other people's userpages (advice which was probably wrong), but that if he suggested specific edits that would get him bocked. Here he is made specific edits to a draft article on homeopathy, in what seems to me to be a clear attempt to circumvent his editing restrictions. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Dana pointed out that the edit to the draft article was before the topic ban, my mistake. I see from Vassyana's talkpage that the problem was with Dana asking somebody to publish an article related to homeopathy that he had previously worked on. That doesn't seem so problematic to me. Unwise certainly, and not in line with the spirit of the editing restriction, but it might have been dealt with by a warning rather than an immediate block, especially since he stopped editing articles and article talkpages in line with the ban. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)