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Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Yasuke/Evidence

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Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

Scope

  • What breaches of Wikipedia policies have happened over the past year on the Yasuke article and talk page?
  • Through various vehicles, "Gender-related disputes or controversies and associated people", sometimes known as GENSEX, have been a contentious topic for almost a decade. Should the scope be widened to include sexuality? Please provide examples of disputes that this expansion would help that are not already covered by existing contentious topics.
  • Since Gamergate in 2015, have there been systemic problems in articles that are at the intersection of race, ethnicity, or national origin and nerd culture (video games, comic books, table-top games, fandom, etc.), broadly construed?

Submitting evidence

  • Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
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Supporting assertions with evidence

  • Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
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Evidence presented by J2UDY7r00CRjH

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Reason why I originally joined the Yasuke discussion

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(copied and edited from my comment in the current RfC:)

I was originally drawn to this subject when I saw the African Samurai discussion on RSN after opening some unrelated discussions there and reading the other open discussions. I read through a lot of that discussion and saw that there was an academic text published by Lockley that had not yet been viewed but had been purchased by one editor and was on it's way called 『つなぐ世界史』2 近世. 5 days later when an editor responded to one of my discussions I had opened [1] I then took another look at the Lockley thread to see if the book and been received and saw that the work had been posted here, and that its contents contained the line quoted above [ie. the 'there is debate as to whether Yasuke truly became a "samurai," but it is believed that, at least for his lifetime, he was undoubtedly appointed as a vassal of Nobunaga.' line](which I had also read in a separate link also posted there, and which I had only read this second time visiting the thread). [2] Lastly, I don't think I ever stated anywhere that Yasuke was not a samurai, only that some historians say we don't have enough information and some perhaps think he was not (Watanabe and Tsujiuchi) so if anyone does say that I said that, please ask them for a source for that claim.

Symphony Regalia wrote that editors who are debating this topic are doing so in bad faith

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They wrote the following in the current RfC:

>The previous RfC was done excellently in my opinion. The main issue is that people who are convinced he isn't one, because they just know, or because they read it as a part of a culture war over a video game[3], are pushing a POV at complete odds with essentially all reliable sourcing on Yasuke. The Yasuke article saw an absurd amount of vandalism when said video game trailer came out and if anything I think general sanctions (not unlike Gamergate sanctions) would be potentially appropriate to prevent continued disruption. (diff)

This is despite that the editor who opened the RfC's first addition to the Yasuke article was to include a citation to Japanese historian Yu Hirayama that Yasuke was a samurai (diff) and two of the editors who voted in favor of the RfC (Relm and SmallMender) having previously defended Lockely in the RSN, and one even denounced the current online debate, writing "the only reason this discussion is happening right now is the recent announcement of Ubisoft's newest AC game, and the culture-war backlash it recieved from figures like Mark Kern". (link) Read the entire paragraph there if you think they are perhaps viewing Mark Kern in a positive light here.

I am not sure if this is relevant to the investigation but I did not like this type of accusatory language that was used here elsewhere in talk page, equating people who want to include a line saying some historians say there is not enough information to determine if Yasuke was a samurai with vandals and culture warriors. I don't know if this is considered incorrect conduct and I mention it only since I am listed as an involved party. I give no remark on what if any action should be taken and leave that entirely to the arbitration committee. At the same time I did not want to simply not include it just to be nice because if the conduct of editors is being investigated I do not believe I should ignore what I felt to be improper conduct on some level, without regard to if this conduct is something that should be investigated by the arbitration committee, which again I leave to the committee to decide.

Watanabe Daimon was not brought to the Yasuke discussion due to backlash to the video game

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Watanabe Daimon (ja:渡邊大門) is a Japanese historian who recently wrote in Yahoo News that the information given in primary sources is not enough to show that Yasuke was a samurai ([4]). He has written about Yasuke previously in 2021 (link), and has been cited on the Yasuke page with no issues since at least 2023: diff. I don't know if this is relevant.

Not all users engaging in this discussion were brought there from the video game

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The exact thing being investigated is somewhat unclear to me, so I don't know if this point is relevant, but I just want to make clear that not all editors discussing this topic are even brought from the video game. For example, Eirikr first contributed to the article in 2022. (diff)

Evidence presented by Gitz6666

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Disruptive editing by non-party editors

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Looking at the last seven days, 20-26 Sept 2024, we see:

  • IPs removing "samurai": [5][6][7][8] (this stopped on 21 Sep when semi-protection was restored).
  • Same by newly registered editors/SPA: [9]
  • Same by more experienced editors: [10]
  • Disruptive/unconstructive edits by IPs: [11][12][13][14][15]
  • Same by newly registered editors/SPA: [16][17]
  • Same by more experienced editors: [18]

Edit war on journalistic sources

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On 29 July Tinynanorobots (TR) removed CNN because unreliable source [19] (they also removed one mention of "samurai" - unexplained, tagged as minor edit [20]). When reverted by SR, they reverted again [21] and SR reverted [22]. Since then:

On 14 Sept, TR removed again without providing adequate edit summaries [37] [38]. I restored [39] and complained (thread).

There are no policy-based reasons for removing NEWSORG sources that are not contradicted by scholarship. However, on 17 Sept I tried to address TR's concerns about WP:OVERKILL by creating two citation bundles for academic sources and NEWSORG [40]. The edit went unchallenged until recently: on 28 Sept TR removed [41] and SR restored [42].

Japanese NEWSORG unrelated to the samurai issue (huffingtonpost.jp, intojapanwaraku.com and news.yahoo.co.jp) have never been challenged.

Reply to GhostOfDanGurney

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I'm not sure I understand what GODG means by Gitz6666 has not offered a retraction of the comments which lead to this sanction. My "comments" is only one comment, this one [43], and my pblock/tban prevents me from deleting it. For the reasons I gave in my unblock request, I'm surprised it was considered a BLP violation. An immediately preceding ANI discussion provides context; there I expressed my views on the "intersex issue" in these two comments [44][45], which I hope you will read.

On Yvan Part's editing

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On 2 Aug, BrocadeRiverPoems (BRP) added attribution to a CNN journalist for the content "as a samurai, he was granted a servant" [46]; YP replaced CNN with Lockley as a source and rephrased it to "Historians think ... despite ..." [47]. On 3 Aug, SR restored CNN and wikivoice. YP reverted with accusations, e.g. Your behaviour is bordering on WP:OWN, WP:LAWYERING and WP:POVPUSH [48]. YP's reaction to SR's undoing of two bold edits made by BRP and YP was WP:UNCIVIL.

As noted by TR, the first sentence of the lead at the time contained unverifiable content: "Yasuke ... served as a samurai ... for a period of 15 months". The length of Yasuke's samurai service is unknown. On the t/p four editors (TR, YP, SR and BRP) discussed the issue. YP suggested removing "samurai" and retaining 15 months of service under Nobunaga [49], noting that Removing all mention of status, either samurai or retainer, from the first sentence would deal with most problems. [50]. TR supported the proposal [51]. SR argued that removing the samurai mention would contradict the spirit of the RfC consensus. YP replied with more accusations, including WP:OWNBEHAVIOR [52]. SR replied on the merits and noted you appear to be a WP:SPA created to argue against the inclusion of "samurai", leading to more accusations of WP:NPA and ASPERSIONS against SR [53].

I didn't join the discussion at the time, but a month later I noticed it and thought that deleting the unsourced "15 months" was the simple solution to a simple problem. I removed it [54] and the edit went unchallenged. YP's insistence on removing "samurai" rather than unsourced information suggests WP:POVPUSH.

On 12 Sept, YP filed a formal complaint against SR's chronic, intractable behaviour [55], this one [56]. SR restoring "samurai" and CNN, and restoring wikivoice instead of the WEASEL "Historians think", are listed as evidence of WP:OWN; SR mentioning the first RfC and WP policies is evidence of WP:LAWYERING; SR noting that YP is a SPA is WP:PA; a series of links are offered to falsely suggest that SR called fellow editors "Japanese nationalists". I saw no merit in YP's and others' accusations, and explained why [57].

YP was created on 16 May, and immediately began editing Talk:Yasuke, Talk:List of foreign-born samurai in Japan, and WP:ANI. Then they moved on to other topics, including Talk:COVID-19 vaccine, where they opened a thread. There, I found this comment quite puzzling, I don't usually deal with medical topics [58] - "usually" suggests practice, and at the time they had made less than 50 edits. So I enquired about this at ANI [59] and on their user t/p (thread).

Reply to Tinynanorobots

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Re TR's Gitz´s more recent edits ... seem like Coatrack11 to me, the diff [60] shows that I summarised five RS faithfully. It's not my fault if they cover Hirayama (NYT) and Lockley (JT), and not the views of Watanabe and Goza, who question Yasuke's samurai status. In this thread, I argued that including those views would create WP:FALSEBALANCE. My edit has recently been reverted by TR [61] and I've opened a discussion (ongoing).

(Ir)relevance of sanctions applied on other WMF projects

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YP's recommendation that I be monitored because of my poor record on it.wiki is based on the mistaken assumption that sanctions on other WMF projects are relevant here.

This assumption has surfaced repeatedly in the Yasuke discussions, most notably in this ANI thread, where TR, BRP and others have raised concerns about SR's record on ja.wiki (e.g. [62], [63], [64], passim); several times on Talk:Yasuke and other pages, such as ANI [65] and user t/p [66]; they were expressed by Xslyq in a discussion on Talk:Assassin's Creed Shadows [67] and elsewhere [68][69][70]. This has been noted by Robertsky, this is not the first time that the Japanese discussion is brought up here [71].

Elinruby

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Elinruby's evidence submission lacks specific, refutable allegations against me, but compels me to provide context.

Elinruby has a history of PA and ASPERSIONS against me. For example:

I have repeatedly asked Elinruby to stop (e.g., [72], pinging El C, [73], [74]) and they have received an AE warning by Callanecc, but to no avail. Recently, their comment to my ANI submission, OS needed? ... Why is this thread even being allowed? It should be revdeled, prompted Doug Weller to warn them about AGF/NPA [75]. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by LokiTheLiar

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There was a recent RFC that found a consensus that Yasuke was a samurai

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Here's the closing. In it, Chrhns found that There is a clear consensus that Yasuke should be represented in the article as a Samurai. and that Since there have been no reliable sources furnished which contest the status of Yasuke as a samurai, it would be a violation of NPOV to depict it as contested.

There was lots of bludgeoning at this discussion that's hard to capture with single diffs, but for a few examples see this case where Hexenakte tries to argue someone into changing their position, this example where Eirikr tries to argue the same someone into changing their position, and this case where Green Caffeine tries to argue the exact same someone into changing their position. But I encourage ArbCom to skim the whole RFC to see how much of a mess it was.

Since then, multiple users have disruptively attempted to ignore or overturn this consensus

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We start the day after the RFC was closed with Shinjitsunotsuikyu arguing that Yasuke should be described as a slave since there is no record that tells he was not after given to Nobunaga (which to be clear is blatantly false).

A day after that we have Sakamajiro arguing that Yasuke lacks crucial elements that define a Samurai, and thus does not deserve this respectful status/title.

There are lots of examples like this but I'd like to especially call attention to this thread by Eirikr, where he engages in significant primary source re-interpretation in order to conjecture that a secondary source the RFC found to be reliable for this topic may have misinterpreted something relevant to the dispute.

Recently, Brocade River Poems has created a new RFC only three months after the last one was closed to specifically answer this question that has already been answered with a "clear consensus".

Eirikr's Wiktionary talk page has been used to coordinate this disruption

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Here's Eirikr, on his Wiktionary talk page, attempting to play the refs when it became clear the RFC wasn't going in his favor.

Here's Eirikr himself moving a subthread concerning the RFC. In this subthread, Hexenakte, Eirikr, and several IPs talk about how much they don't like the RFC consensus and how they're going to fight it, with Hexenakte calling it a personal and political issue and Eirikr specifically suggesting going to WP:DRN. Again, this is after the closure of an RFC against their position, so trying to bring it up at DRN would only be disruptive. (To be clear, I don't think it ever was brought up at DRN after the RFC closed, tho it was brought up at many other places.)

Eirikr and Hexenakte bludgeon discussions about them

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Here's the ANI thread right after the RFC. In it you can see Eirikr and Hexenakte repeatedly post walls of text about the underlying sources, which very effectively distracts from the fact that this thread is not about the sources, it is at ANI and therefore about editor behavior.

Evidence presented by BrocadeRiverPoems

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On and Off Wiki Harassment

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Myself, and other editors, were subjected to harassment both on and off Wikipedia presumably as a result of editing Yasuke.

Harassment spamming of my talkpage: Special:Diff/1240665047 Special:Diff/1240662758 Special:Diff/1240662312 Special:Diff/1240662209 These are only some of the diffs, as I logged in one day to 20+ Notifications which had, thankfully, been reverted before I ever saw them.

I received vaguely threatening messages which were expunged by an admin here.

User:Nocomputersintexas after jumping into Yasuke had turned their userpage into an attack page targetting Gitz, Symphony Regalia, and Myself to my recollection which was G10'd here

Presently someone who appears to be User:tofflenheim who has not directly engaged in Yasuke seems to have maintained what appears to be an off-site recreation of the content of the aforementioned attack page against Gitz6666, Symphony Regalia, Silverseren, and myself. While I cannot guarantee that the user on the forum is the same as the user on Wikipedia, the user on the forum is operating under that same name.

Regarding my RfC

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I already covered this in my preliminary statement, but the RfC was an attempt at Dispute Resolution when I tried to insert Hirayama Yu's tweet into the Yasuke article that was agreed upon by the disputing parties to try and include the compromise that was reached on the Talk Page per WP:DR#RFC. One of the disputing user's requested waiting a month to hold the RfC incase sources changed. I did not realize or understand that the relative time to the previous RfC would be so controversial. Special:Diff/1237866505 Special:Diff/1237869174 Special:Diff/1237877741

For my own part, I have no interest in participating in editing Yasuke any further. I understand that my behavior was less than ideal at times, and I have more or less moved on to trying to contribute to the encyclopedia in less contentious topics. If I had known that Yasuke was going to be such a contentious time, I probably would have avoided it all together. While I have at times disagreed with the other participants, and have at times agreed with them as well, I do not think the problems Yasuke faces are because of them. --Brocade River Poems (She/They) 10:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Yvan Part

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About myself

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As the filer of this case, I did expect to be under scrutiny and I'd like to provide some context and evidence on some of the points raised by other editors.

On the topic of Yasuke itself, my personal opinion on the matter has been one of compromise from the start.[1][2] I've contributed to translations and analysis of some primary sources, none of which relate to samurai.[3][4][5] Three days after creating my account, I contributed to 2024 New Caledonia unrest.[6] I edit a wide range of topics and are the majority of my mainspace contributions.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

My contributions on Yasuke

The discussion had been going on for 2 weeks[18], where I did ask for alternatives [19], before editing the article[20] and only after that were objections raised. Gitz presented my lack of challenge of this diff[21] as evidence of povpushing but I consider that the problem had been resolved 3 weeks earlier after some hard earned edits, most of which should not have needed 2 days of discussions to go through.[22][23][24][25] The duration being unsourced was not a point raised during the discussion when I participated and, considering the matter settled, I had little reasons to look further into it.

Britannica

As far as I know, the reliability of the Britannica article was never questioned. The use of "historians think" and that the definition of samurai was "ambiguous" are direct quotations. Any challenges to the addition of those quotations should be on the content and reliability of the source.

On this edit.

I can only ask editors to read it in its entirety before forming an opinion and from my point of view mostly highlight that the problems were already present back then. I'll note that the talkpage section I replied to was originally started by Gitz who himself was critical of the first RfC.[26] A view shared by Loki who tried to open a new RfC shortly after[27] and was the general view at the time that the first RfC had not been done properly, no matter what opinion editors had on its outcome.

General disruption

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The disruption was already happening back in May as I had noted myself[28] and has been frequent either on the talkpage [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] or as borderline edit warring on the articles.[36][37][38][39][40][41][42]

The bludgeoning has been astounding as I mentioned in my preliminary statement and no parties seem interested in settling content disputes through the normal dispute resolution processes when it's obvious they are at a standstill and further discussion between them will be completely pointless leading to status quo stonewalling.

I have not participated in other articles that would fit under the "backlash to diversity and inclusion" scope.

Symphony Regalia

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Reasons I'm bringing this up again

As mentioned in my preliminary statement, I believe this complaint I had originally filed at ANI has not been properly evaluated. The reasons include:

  • the complaint only being a comment to another very different complaint by BrocadeRiverPoems, to the point of being almost unrelated despite being about the same editor.
  • the complaint not receiving any direct replies by any editors. I can only link directly to the archive as proof. [76]
  • the complaint only being mentioned directly by one of the !voting editor; no element of my complaint being used in any of the reasoning of !voting editors and no mention of me at any point by name or otherwise by any of the editors during that section outside of the aforementioned one.
  • I believe massive bludgeoning in the original filing made most editors just want to get it over with.
Current problems

WP:OWNBEHAVIOUR: Fully reverting edits that have both debatable and fairly minor changes unless making the changes himself. (opposition:[43][44][45], change:[46]) Displayed again later. (opposition:[47][48][49][50][51], change:[52])

WP:LAWYERING: Using a previous RfC and other various WP:RULES to oppose all manners of proposed changes, rarely discussing content leading to WP:STONEWALLING. (RfC: edit summaries:[53][54], discussions:[55][56][57][58][59]) (Other rules:[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73])

WP:PA:. "Given that you appear to be a WP:SPA created to argue against the inclusion of "samurai", I can understand if this is an emotional topic to you, but do try to be civil".[74] And "I am assuming good faith on your behalf (given that you appear to be a WP:SPA created to argue against the inclusion of "samurai")"[75] always following mentions of WP:AGF for a dose of irony. Despite the apparent confidence in his opinion, he never saw fit to report it to a noticeboard, simply repeating accusations of SPA instead.
WP:ASPERSIONS: Particularly against "racist Japanese nationalists" and "agenda pushing" editors. [76][77][78][79][80][81]

WP:BLUDGEONING: List of sources he has been dragging around since July [82], refused any challenge to it, copypasted the list 5 times in 2 days in a recent RfC.[83][84][85][86]

Past and related behaviour

Multiple WP:ANI/WP:AN trips.[87][88][89][90] (Warnings and blocks)

An ArbCom case[91] which resulted in a Tban, removed the arbitration sanction as "harassment".[92]

Frequent talkpage warnings.[83][93][94][95][96]

He is currently indeffed from the Japanese wiki [77], due to WP:IDHT and potential WP:SOCK/WP:MEAT around the topic of Yasuke there. [78]

Yvan Part (talk) 04:30, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Tinynanorobots

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Assuming Bad Faith

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One big problem is the assuming bad faith and double standards. I tried to bring the Yasuke article in line with WP:HISTRS and replace news articles with more academic ones. It is here that Regalia and I have had our longest running disagreement. I especially want to remove the CNN article, which is sensationalist in tone, and is shown to contain errors by contrasting it with Encyclopedia Britannica.[[79]] Several times I thought there was consensus on this issue, and even once a third party said there was. After a month during which Regalia was the only one opposing, a third party reverted his edit [[80]]. Gitz then reverted and joined the discussion. Regalia Symphony’s views on reliable sources shifts, depending on if he wants to use it.[[81]][[82]]. I don’t know what is meant by WEIGHT working naturally. Also, there are claims about Yasuke that appear in almost all the older news article, but that no one has tried to put into the article. This shows inconsistency in the application of this interpretation of policy. Gitz's argument for citing sources is also puzzling[[83]]. Gitz´s more recent edits have focused on the video game controversy, and seem like Coatrack[[84]] to me. Another misunderstanding is shown by Aquillion[[85]] For history, the academic consensus is opinion. It isn’t the same as science.

Additionally, sources are treated differently depending on if they express any lack of certainty on Yasuke´s status. Japandigest.de is added and put in the lead, although it seems to have low requirements to write there. I find this strange, because the degree of disagreement is very small and one of nuance. Also, changes to the lead weren´t allowed when I tried them. [[86]] Only when Gitz later addressed the problem were the changes allowed.

Behaviour Issues

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I started working on Samurai, but Regalia followed me there and again reverted my edits, without offering improvements. The reasons given for the reverts were poor, and in one case claiming a source explicitly said something it didn’t and mixing class with hereditary. [[87]] This seems to have been connected to Yasuke in Regalia's mind. Yasuke is an exception to the rule that samurai status was hereditary. This is not the only case of Regalia having false or misleading information in edit summaries.[[88]][[89]][[90]] Regalia believes that a lack of consensus means that his preferred version of the article gets to stay. He then goes through the motions of discussion. The sources that he provides don’t back up his position, and in fact contradict it.[[91]][[92]] After I reported an IP user for possibly lying about Regalia’s activities on the Japanese Wiki, Regalia accused me and Brocade River Poem of plotting together. The accusations were vague, and the diffs offered showed disagreement, but also two editors with different viewpoints getting along. Despite the flimsy evidence, it seemed to work as other editors came to Regalia’s rescue, which then emboldened RS to be more aggressive. It seems that no Admin read the diffs, and most seem not to understand the issue, many thought that I was reporting Symphony. Additionally, false claims have been repeatedly been made about my opinion, on a topic that I haven’t staked a position out on, and may be internally undecided about. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:58, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Elinruby

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Failure to discuss?

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Editors I respect are seeing echoes of Gamergate. And Yasuke the game character is notable. But why are we discussing him in the article about the historical person?

I think it is important to point out that in Japanese 101 they teach you that Japanese people loathe confrontation. So setting a standard that editors must prove a negative and find a source that says that Yasuke was *not* a samurai not only, in my opinion, stands ONUS on its head but is culturally unreasonable. No Japanese academic would argue the point.

There is a pattern here. Example Sources=OR insists best source=about video game academic=fringe Lockley>Japanese source remove another source refbomb poor sources Remove more sourcesAnother titled=Talk:Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1237939414 Inconsistent on self-published experts calling IDHT aggressively policingEB enough

RfC RSN

Pattern of behaviour

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Imane Khelif
working hard at a no comment remove contextAlready covered in lead"?!? Horse insufficiently beaten remove context

Unblocked "in response to your agreement not to edit Imane Khelif or Talk:Imane Khelif" by Valereee (talk) 12:28, 13 September 2024 compliance?: Language issue? Another

PS: Several people in this case are more competent than I to decide whether Yasuke was a samurai. I referred Eirikr concerns about Immanuelle to AN because his Japanese skills are far better than mine, for example. But Gitz is not one of those people. Elinruby (talk) 10:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

History of making preemptive accusations


Ukraine for pattern of behaviour

Start at appeal of topic ban

[93]

Then

[94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108][109] [110] [111] [112] [113][114]

Evidence presented by GhostOfDanGurney

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Disruptive editing by Gitz6666 in the GENSEX area

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I believe this is in scope due to concerning the behaviour of a named party editing disruptively in a "culture war" topic, expanding on what was briefly touched on in another user's section and providing diffs.

  • Gitz6666 was pblocked from Imane Khelif and that article's talk page by Valereee for "Continuing to speculate on a medical condition."[115]
  • Specifically, Gitz6666 made un-retracted speculations of "DSDs" in a discussion on Talk:Imane Khelif.[116]
  • The greater context is that the "controversy" (false claims regarding article subject's gender) ignited after Imane Khelif defeated an Italian opponent in the Olympic games, and the relevant talk page discussions Gitz6666 participated in were about that "gender-related dispute or controversy".
  • Gitz6666 edit warred to restore the offending comment after it was reverted by another user on BLP grounds.[117][118]
  • Asked by multiple users to stop,[119][120][121][122] Gitz6666 refused to listen,[123][124][125] even warning the user who reverted his comment.[126]
  • Among the replies to the offending comment, TarnishedPath noted that there was "the intersection of the BLP, GENSEX and Medical CTOP areas".[127]
  • Thebiguglyalien, the closer of a concurrent discussion (also related to the "controversy") on the same talk page cautioned Gitz6666 against WP:BLUDGEONing, noting "I'd to mention that the back-and-forths you were engaging in throughout the RfC on this article made it more difficult to close."[128]
  • Gitz6666 negotiated the lift of the pblock in exchange for what amounts to a TBan from article and it's Talk as Gitz6666 was unable to vote in the BoT election due to blocks on two wikis.[129][130]

To date, Gitz6666 has not offered a retraction of the comments which lead to this sanction as far as I am aware.― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  05:34, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Symphony Regalia

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Gamergate 2.0, anti-DEI backlash

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On May 16th, the trailer for the video game featuring Yasuke was released. Gamergate found it objectional that there was a black protagonist in a video game set in feudal Japan[131][132]. The Wikipedia article for the real historical figure subsequently saw high amounts of vandalism[133].

Canvassing and harassment of editors

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Gamergate has been involved in canvassing and the harassment of editors.

  • "yasuke" and "wikipedia" have been mentioned together roughly 1000 separate times on 4chan between /v/ and /pol/ since May 16th[134][135]. These boards as well as Twitter/IRC rooms coordinated most of the harassment that defined Gamergate.
  • 2ch/5ch, the Japanese gamergate affiliated board run by nettouyo, is actively monitoring Yasuke and Assassin's Creed Shadows. They have a thread dedicated to canvassing Wikipedia[136].
  • Editors are being posted on 4chan as targets for harassment[137][138].

Brief context

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  • I am not involved in this culture war, nor do I have any desire to be. My only opinion on the matter is that Wikipedia must uphold WP:V and follow reliable sources.

Cause of the Disruption - Editors disregarding community RfC consensus

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The cause of disruption is very simple. The RfC established that There is a clear consensus that Yasuke should be represented in the article as a Samurai[139]. However:

Parties intentionally disregarding RfC consensus, and engaging in excessive disruption

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Eirikr, Hexanakte, Rotary Engine, Tinynanorobots

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  • Eirikr and Hexenakte coordinating off-site tagteaming and strategies to bypass the RfC, together with random IP users
    • Eirikr, Hexenakte, and several IPs began discussing how to circumvent the RfC consensus before the RfC was even closed when they saw that the votes weren't going in their favor. Coordinated influence such as "Frankly, 'consensus' as carried out in the recent RFC is a farce", "Fair enough, I will assume you have it under control in that case", and "They're making this into a completely personal and political issue". is present. This even includes would-be WP:BLP violations against Thomas Lockley[174][175][176].
  • Eirikr is obsessed with Yasuke not being a samurai, and has spent months bludgeoning and soapboxing on talk pages in denial of the RfC to the point of wp:disruption
    • Eirikr has bludgeoned roughly 300kb of OR to various talk pages surrouding Yasuke. He has argued that Britannica, Smithsonians Magazine, BBC, TIME, CNN, NYT, Lockley's book and Lopez-Vera's book are not WP:RS because of their content: these sources directly claim that Yasuke was a samurai, which is incompatible with Eirikr's original research. [177] [178] [179] [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] [189] [190] [191]
  • Rotary Engine has, for months, repeatedly soapboxed and bludgeoned talk pages on an issue already settled by RfC consensus, to the point of disruption
  • Tinynanorobots has spent months disregarding and undermining the RfC
    • He has engaged in disruptive, absurd sophism such as "Saying that one can call Yasuke a samurai is different than saying that he is one" and "The term samurai seems to be problematic".[206][207][208][209][210][211]
  • Tinynanorobots is obsessed with the idea that Times, BBC, NYT, CNN, Forbes, The Smithsonian, Britannica, and etc are not reliable sources because they say that Yasuke was a samurai (WP:DISRUPTION, soapbox, bludgeoning, constantly pushing violations of WP:V WP:OR WP:NPOV)
  • Tinynanorobots edit-warring to remove Times, CNN, Smithsonian, etc without any justification
    • Tinynanorobots has attempted to broadly remove reliable sourcing from Yasuke six times without justification, often with misleading edit summaries[232][233][234][235][236][237]. He has been reverted by 3 editors.

MFwiki

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  • MFwiki, in a disregard of the RfC, proclaimed that there was "clear and active revisionism" going on and then attributed that to someone following the RfC consensus[238]
  • MFwiki then accused large swaths of editors of being "paid actors" [239]
  • MFwiki then made the same accusation again after being warned[240]

NamelessLameless

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  • NamelessLameless effectively encouraged editors to not follow the RfC because "A post on Twitter with 3300 likes and 143 comments" complained about it [241]

Kyoraki

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  • Kyoraki (SPA/sock) vandalized the Yasuke talk page FAQ, encouraging more RfC disruption[242].

Ongoing BLP violations

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Primary targets: Thomas Lockley (historian) and various Sweet Baby employees.

天罰れい子 (sock/SPA), Ezio's Assassin, Shinjitsunotsuikyu, MisteOsoTruth, Tanukisann, Fred.jp, Ronten5

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Blatant racism and nationalism

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Shinjitsunotsuikyu

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  • Shinjitsunotsuikyu has frequently disrupted talk pages with openly racist and hostile nationalist rhetoric such "Wikipedia is now a tool of black supremacy and DEI propaganda"[257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264].

ICHIRO SHIWAKU

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  • ICHIRO SHIWAKU uses Google Translate output Japanese to post aggressive nationalist rhetoric on talk pages such as "The Japanese People and Society do not wish to have it's people, history, culture, and understandings to be sullied over western social political agendas"[265][266][267].

MisteOsoTruth

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  • MisteOsoTruth has accused large swaths of editors of being paid by Ubisoft and "critical race theorists".
  • MisteOsoTruth has also disruptively suggested that the RfC consensus is a "DEI" and "ESG" conspiracy.[268] [269] [270]

Tanukisann

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  • Tanukisann consistently posts xenophobic and racist comments such as "This is the true nature of white people. White people believe that they are righteous people. White people compromise and recognize black people as human beings. And they think that yellow people are racially inferior"[271][272][273]

2400:4053:e100:ae00:f9cc:2ebc:7bcb:8576, 79.116.127.253, 178.24.248.195

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  • "White people rewriting history again. Why not ask Japanese history experts?"[274]
  • "they only care about pandering and DEI karma"[275]
  • "It's sad how Wikipedia is becoming an ideological shithole where facts are changed based on popular vote now"[276]

ErikWar19

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  • ErikWar19 is a SPA that is obsessed with making bad faith arguments to call Yasuke a slave/slurs as a way to provoke other editors. He does this by misrepresenting sources.
    • "In the sentence with both words, N-word and C., we can see the different use of both terms to talk about two forms of black people"[277][278][279][280][281][282]
    • Multiple uninvolved editors have called out his source misrepresentation[283][284][285].

Misc replies

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Tinynanorobot's insinuations toward multiple editors are of course false. He has previously posted "Your biggest mistake seems to have been being fair to people you disagree with" which concerns me[286].

For similar reasons, Rotary Engine's comment is also not true. It is very telling that he is using ArbCom evidence to still debate sources.

Yvan Part is a culture war WP:SPA who called RfC consensus disgusting within 24 hours of close

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Yvan Part is a new account that was created the day the trailer for the video game featuring Yasuke was released (5/16), and within 2 hours of account creation went on to argue on Yasuke-related talk pages to POV push.[287]

  • On July 1st, one day after the previous RfC closed with an overwhelming consensus, Yvan Part demonstrated intent to violate it and called it disgusting[288].
  • On August 2nd Yvan Part went on to attempt to sidestep the RfC consensus by adding "despite the ambiguous definition of samurai during this period" to water down the assertion in an undue fashion[289]
  • On August 6th Yvan Part outright removed "samurai" from the lede in violation of the spirit of the RfC[290]. After this he did it again with a misleading edit summary, calling it a "slight modification"[291].
  • On August 20th he attempted to remove "samurai" from the lede yet again in violation of the RfC[292].

Yvan Part's comment has already been rebuked by multiple experienced editors

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Yvan Part has incorrectly represented his comment here as "not heard" so that he could try again after the community rejected it, however this is not true. Editors heard it and rejected it:

I don't quite get why editors keep making a big deal over Symphony Regalia previous blocks... I'm not convinced by the evidence for recent problems and also find this does look like editors trying to get an opponent blocked. I also find it troubling that the 2 main editors asking for a block seem to be very new accounts, suggesting it's even worse than Loki suggested as some of the editors seem to have just been drawn here by the culture war issue.[293]

And again[294].

Yvan Part threatened retaliation for objecting to his attempt to bypass RfC consensus

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When his attempt to violate the RfC was objected to, he was aggressively uncivil, making claims to "reconsider" "before this needs to escalate" even at 1R[295] (note: he was reverted by multiple editors).

Comment

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I have been polite and professional with every editor here (ex clear vandal racism). Overall, I do think an enforcement mechanism for RfC outcomes would help a lot for disruption cause #1, and EC protection for disruption cause #2. The racism and nationalism should also be addressed.

Evidence presented by Robert McClenon

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Filings at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard

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There have been two filings at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard concerning Yasuke. The first was:

The second was:

What these filings illustrate is that there was forum shopping, which is unfortunately common when a dispute becomes contentious. The use of DRN to try to influence or override the outcome of an RFC is common but improper. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Off-Wiki Coordination

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As LokiTheLiar has reported, the Wiktionary user talk page of Eirikr, [296], has been used for coordination of edits and of response to the RFC on whether Yasuke should be described as a samurai. Eirikr is an administrator on Wiktionary. I think that this constitutes off-wiki coordination (because it is on a different Wikimedia project). I do not know whether this would be considered cross-wiki abuse. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:00, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Aquillion

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Yvan Part edit-warring

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The RFC that closed on June 30 clearly established a consensus that Yasuke's status as a Samurai should not be presented as contested.

  • Yvan was aware of the RFC [297]; note also the way this comment personalizes the dispute.
  • Despite this, Yvan attempted to remove the article's most prominent references to this status ([298][299]; note the misleading edit summary in the first diff.)
  • Yvan also attempted to frame Yasuke's status as contested by adding in-text attribution ([300][301][302][303].)
  • Yvan displayed WP:SATISFY / WP:DEADHORSE behavior towards the topic after the RFC in general, drawing lines in the sand and trying to set their own rules for when the matter could be "laid to rest".[304]

Tinynanorobots edit-warring

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Despite the RFC's conclusion, Tinynanorobots repeatedly attempted to remove references to Yasuke's status as a Samurai from the end of the lead. [305][306][307]

BrocadeRiverPoems editing against consensus

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BrocadeRiverPoems participated in WP:TAGTEAM edit-warring against the RFC consensus related to the above, adding attribution in a way that expresses doubt ([308][309][310]); they also added a section that overtly frames Yasuke's status as a samurai as controversial. ([311])

Drive-by editing against consensus

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The article has been subject to extensive drive-by edits and edit-warring against the RFC by non-parties, contributing to its instability:

WP:DEADHORSE / WP:BLUDGEON repetition of issues settled in the RFC

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The June 30 RFC focused extensively on discussions of sources and reached an unambiguous conclusion on how to summarize them. Nonetheless, numerous editors have repeated the exact same arguments from that RFC again and again on talk, especially aspects of Lockley and "disproving a negative" that were primary focuses of the RFC and explicitly part of the closing statement:

Evidence presented by Rotary Engine

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Links to archived comments updated ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:08, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Background

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Sourcing for the article Yasuke is complicated by two factors:

  1. Fictionalised depictions of the "Black Samurai" are predominant over factual histories. (See Yasuke#In popular culture for examples).
  2. Secondary & tertiary sources often conflate fictional depictions with factual history.

Reconciling these factors with core policies has caused considerable disagreement between editors. (Example discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 447#Reliability of Thomas Lockley)

The core, unresolved, dispute is not about whether an African man may have been a ‘’samurai’’ in Sengoku Japan, which is eminently possible, but how Wikipedia should reflect that viewpoint.

It has often been reduced to the false dichotomy of "samurai" vs "not samurai", but there is more nuance required.

And no regular editor professes that the article should state "not samurai".

Policy misinterpretation

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Discussions on the accuracy of sources and on reconciling sources with policy have been met with arguments based on erroneous interpretations of ...

WP:OR

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This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources

Despite WP:OR being clear that it is limited to article content, editors argue that assessing reliability of sources on Talk pages is prohibited original research; or invent arbitrary rules.

Diffs: Fieari [345], Symphony Regalia [346], [347], [348], [349], [350], [351], Gitz6666 [352], Slatersteven [353], Aquillion [354]

which compounds into ...

WP:NPOV@WP:DUE

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Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.

Despite WP:DUE being clear that assessment of due weight should factor prominence across all reliable sources, editors argue that only sources supporting the description of samurai or its direct antithesis should be weighed.

This ignores the plurality of sources which are silent or inconclusive (examples), and treats a potential minority position as a strict majority.

This argument is often phrased as "There are no sources which say he wasn't".

Diffs: LokiTheLiar [355], Silver seren [356], Fieari [357], Symphony Regalia [358], [359], [360], [361] and also in the diffs linked below.

Flawed RfC

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Chrhns close at Talk:Yasuke/Archive 3#RfC: Should the view that Yasuke was a samurai be added to the article is flawed - a clear supervote, it repeats the issues of policy interpretation detailed above. It rejects the arguments of a majority of respondents based on those misinterpretations of policy.

By my rough tally (Yes Majority: 7; Yes minority: 5; Yes unstated: 3; No: 2), "Yes, as a Majority view" has a plurality, but not a majority. Without downweighting of !votes, it was clearly a close result - arguably in favour of "Yes, as a minority view".

And, as above, downweighting of !votes was not aligned with policy, and consequently the consensus described in the closing statement is flawed.

The RfC consensus has also been misrepresented as stronger than it was.

Diffs: [362], [363]

Quotes from the close:

The opposition mostly boils down to the argument that Thomas Lockley's book is unreliable. The book, an historical novelisation, was later found to be not reliable for factual statements at RSN. Symphony Regalia rejects this consensus. [364], [365], [366]

It is not on Wikipedia editors to declare that the source is an unreliable source .... The logic here is confusing, and misrepresentative of respondents' arguments.

Note: I did not participate in the RfC, and did not take it to a review. At my first involvement, community patience had already been exhausted by the RSN discussion.

Tendentious/careless source selection

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Sources introduced in discussions appear to have been selected to fit a predetermined outcome.

Diffs: Aquillion [367] (My analysis: [368]); and diffs in "Bludgeoning" below.

Sources, self-published sources, including Tweets, have been supported or rejected on their point of view, not on the reliability of source.

Symphony Regalia [369] & [370], Gitz6666 [371], [372]

Discussions: [373]

Misrepresentation of sources

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Sources have been continually misrepresented, both individually and collectively:

  1. non-academic sources as academic; [374] (Here, Edugyan is a novelist. Quotation marks are removed from Atkins’ original text: “African samurai”.)
  2. non-reviewed as peer reviewed; [375], [376], [377], [378], [379], [380] & [381] (Here, Purdy is a “book review”), [382]
  3. book reviews as "academic reviews” or academic sources; [383], [384] & RSN diffs above.
  4. viewpoints as the "majority view in sources", without considering the whole corpus of sources; [385], [386], [387], [388]

Quote: In fact, ‘’’all reliable sources available today describe him as a samurai’’’, and none deny this. The italicised text is erroneous; multiple reliable sources do not use the descriptor, ‘’samurai’’.

Some of this is minor, and excusable. But persistently misrepresenting sources is a disruptive ‘’conduct’’ matter.

Derailing

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Discussions have consistently devolved to the question of "Was Yasuke a samurai?". This has prevented resolution of other aspects - including source selection & content phrasing.

It should not have taken 46,000 words at RSN to determine that historical novelisation is not a reliable source for facts - but peer-reviewed works by the same author may be; depending on context. And, consequently, material found in the former, but not in the latter, should be attributed.[389]

Another example discussion: [390]

Diffs: [391], [392],

Bludgeoning

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Symphony Regalia frequently repeats arguments verbatim; fails to engage with other editors’ counterpoints.

Diffs: [393] & [394]; [395], [396]. [397] & [398] & [399] & [400] & [401]. [402] & [403].

Aspersions

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Symphony Regalia frequently attributes malicious motives and asserts that other editors are engaging in OR, POV pushing, nationalist editing, deceit or other nefarious behaviours.

Repeated use of WP:OR as a counterpoint to discussion which is explicitly outside the scope of that policy is disruptive. Racist and/or nationalistic POV pushing should be raised in the appropriate forums.

See also: Hierarchy of argument

Diffs: [404], [405], [406], [407], [408], [409], [410], [411], [412], [413], [414], [415], [416], [417], [418], [419]

Responses

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Evidence by Robert McClenon - Filings at Dispute Resolution Noticeboard

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Note that the RfC close recommends the matter be taken to DRN. Close postdates the first DRN filing; predates the second (by TNR). [420]

Evidence by Symphony Regalia

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The diffs provided about in evidence about me do not show anything other than normal discussion of source content and how to represent that in article text.

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

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