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Clarification request: Threaded discussion and section headers on Arbitration talk pages (October 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Beeblebrox at 23:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

{{{decision}}}

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Beeblebrox

In several recent cases, clerks have taken what seems to me to be a very heavy-handed approach to policing proposed decision talk pages, enforcing absolute conformity of section headers and only allowing themselves or arbs to participate in threaded discussion, absolutely banning it for us "lesser" users. When I questioned this, SilkTork directed me to Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Clerks/Procedures#Statement and evidence management as the policy that supports this practice. The problem there is that it doesn't. There is no mention of any rules for talk pages. This appears to be a policy that doesn't actually exist, yet the clerks are strongly enforcing it at the apparent direction of the committee.

While I completely understand the need for controls in initial statements and evidence pages, talk pages, anywhere in project space, are used by the community to discuss the project. In this case the committee seems to be enforcing standards that were just made up out of thin air and are not documented on-wiki. Given that in this most recent case the enforcement of unknown rules based on invisible criteria was a central problem, I strongly feel this issue needs to be brought out in the open and whatever process that was used to develop it needs to be made transparent.

Failing that, the committee needs to accept that there is no such rule and instruct the clerks to stop enforcing it. Arbitration processes are complicated enough without expecting users to abide by invisible rules that apply only when the committee suddenly decides they apply on a particular page.

(The above is my initial statement, below are replies to arbitrator comments)Beeblebrox (talk) 21:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

"it's something that the clerk team and ArbCom has agreed upon.". And that's how new policies are made now? You guys hold a private discussion then begin enforcing a rule by adding a notice to a talk page if and when you decide it applies to that page? A rule that, again, is not in any policy I've seen. I suppose if you do things that way it is easier, you can just make up whatever rule you want and tell the community "we and the clerks agree this is a good idea, so it's now policy whenever we decide it is" but I'm pretty sure even ArbCom isn't supposed to work that way. "the fact that it isn't spelled out there yet doesn't mean it's outside policy" uh ok, is there anything else yu aren't telling us, any other secret policies in your back pocket for when you believe its convenient to spring them on the community and declare that's how it works from now on? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:44, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

C'mon Joe. You're just making up ridiculous excuses now. "The format of a talk page is not policy" is nonsense. If there's not a policy, why is it being enforced? Why are the clerks instructed to do it that way? Arbcom is responsible for establishing its own procedures, I'm not contesting that, but they should be way more transparent than this when doing so. You can't have it both ways, either you are enforcing a new policy that you all have neglected to put in your own procedures, or there is no such rule. Invisible rules that come and go at the whim of the abs is no way to run a committee. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:51, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm curious if any of the arbs have any comment on the fact that the committee also exempts itself and its clerks from this policy, making them free to engage in threaded discussion if they wish while the rest of us are absolutely verboten from doing so. If there was one way to tell the community you think you are better than them, making up a policy and then exempting yourself from it would be a good start. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mkdw: Thanks for your reply. What seems weird to me is that as far as I am aware PD talk pages are the only place in all of Wikipedia where this goes on. Other arb space pages, like this one, have highly formalized structures that disallow any threaded discussion. I think that makes sense on, for example, the initial requests and statement sat the beginning of a case. If those were threaded discussions it would be near impossible for the committee to get anything done. And it works fairly ok here as well. But for some obscure reason on PD talk pages and only on PD talk pages replies are made by the "special class" of arbs and clerks wherever they please. I honestly don't know if anyone else sees it that way but that's how it felt to me. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:52, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Gerda

It has been said that the practise makes it easier to read. That must be for different readers. For me, it's much easier to understand a chronological flow of arguments, than having to go not only to the section where xyz said something, but on top when that happened. It would have been easy for my section because I didn't change my mind ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:01, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Alex Shih

Joe Roe: it isn't spelled out there yet doesn't mean it's outside policy – Isn't this exactly the definition of unknown rules based on invisible criteria? Committee may ask the clerk team to implementing procedures as they wish, but these needs to be spelled out in policy pages (as the basis for when and why the comments must be sectioned), and the committee needs to provide their rationale clearly (as you have done here, thank you), otherwise to those unfamiliar with arbitration proceedings on Wikipedia, it would simply appear as arbitrary enforcement. Community participations are crucial to these proceedings, and if the committee and the clerk team are starting to micromanage every arbitration page in a heavy handed manner (such as absolute conformity of section headers, like seriously?) without adequate communication, it discourages members of the community from participating further, and reduces the effectiveness of the committee from reaching informed decisions.

And these "rules" that are "documented prominently" are randomly put in pages where the committee decides to put with no explanations given initially, and they are not spelled out explicitly in any policy pages at the moment, which I believe is what Beeblebrox is saying; so you may want to withdraw your "disingenuous" accusation, as that is not the example of good faith as required by WP:ARBCOND, and comes off as rather ironic as we have only recently concluded another case centered around civility. Alex Shih (talk) 08:52, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich

It's a rule designed to stop people from talking to each other, or at least significantly interfere with their ability to do so. I don't know why you'd want to do that on a collaborative project. – Levivich 15:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

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As I am demonstrating here, it is now difficult for any reader who is reading this page to know whether the "I agree with Levivich" responses of other editors apply to my entire section, or just the first point above. You have to compare the damn timestamps to figure that out. This inhibits communication and understanding, not just for editors, but also for arbs.

Another problem is that we cannot create section headers for topics, to discuss different issues separately. So anyone wanting to now reply to just this second comment of mine, has to say something foolish like, "Regarding Levivich's second point", and in a few more comments, we'll have, "In response to Joe's third reply to WBG's second response to Levivich's fourth bullet point...".

If we want to get all bureaucratic about this, we can start an RfC to amend ARBPOL with "thou shalt not section talk pages", but gee it'd be better to just have a conversation with the arbs and clerks about it to find the best way forward.

Towards that end, I would ask the arbitrators: since the talk page sectioning policy procedure was implemented, how has it affected the quality and speed of decisions, compared with before the change? – Levivich 20:26, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Alanscottwalker

No, Levivich, there is nothing preventing me from talking to you, nor interfering with my ability to do so, from down here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:06, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Section:

Levivich, I just made a section, in contravention to the argument that one can't make a section. And if you really care, I am replying to your second comment but that hardly even matters, what matters is whatever substance there is to a comment or not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Brad: Sure, the committee can decide they like long interminable back and forth, but it's difficult to see an advantage, including in surfacing what's important. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by WBGodric

Echo Levivich. Further, Joe Roe shall not be casting random aspersions laden with a bout of bad faith. ∯WBG^converse 16:48, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by KillerChihuahua

I agree with BeebleBrox, Gerda, and Levivich. The intent certainly seems to be to squash discussion. The effect is to make it almost impossible to determine what anyone is talking about. I certainly don't find the segmented approach an improvement, indeed quite the contrary. If EditorA says "Bluebells are bad:reason" I ought to be able to counter below, rather than start my own section with "Regarding EditorA's contention that bluebells are bad, above, ...." which requires anyone trying to read the page to scroll and search for text snippets endlessly. It takes easily twice as long per reply, and the effort increases exponentially with each reply. It's absurd. Regarding Joe's assertion that ArbCom and the Clerks have decided this - really? Because while I support their right to organize cases as they see fit, I do not recognize their right to abritrarily decide that talk pages in their demense should suddenly not work as all other talk pages throughout the project. Unless someone is violating Talk page guidelines, what is the issue? I fail to see any rationale here which makes any kind of sense. And as per others' statements, above - this isn't in policy, or guidelines, or anywhere the community can see. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua 20:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'd like to add, regarding Levivich's third point fourth point, "In response to Joe's third reply to WBG's second response to Levivich's fourth bullet point...". Yeah. That. Exactly what I was talking about regarding the exponential effort required to make sense of any reply based on how early in the discussion the original comment, and the reply in question, appeared. KillerChihuahua 20:32, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad

I believe the "sectioned discussion" rule originated awhile ago in the context of a few cases in which the parties were having difficulty in interacting civilly. The rule was created and enforced in a good-faith attempt to keep the arbitration pages useful, not to impair discussion on these pages. Nonetheless, in my opinion and experience it has sometimes had the opposite effect. In particular, in cases with substantial community interest, a page can grow to a large size. It then becomes difficult to make a new comment in a section near the top of the page noticeable, and important points can be missed, including potentially by the arbitrators. For this reason, without endorsing any of the comments (here or elsewhere) imputing intent to anyone, I would urge a reevaluation of this procedure, or at least perhaps using it only in specific instances where it proves necessary. (It may, however, also make sense to table this issue until January and let next year's Committee address it, especially since the impending Israel-Palestine review case may be one in which sectioning the discussion does make sense.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

The intended point of PD talk pages is only for individual editors (principally parties) to bring matters relating to the PD to the attention of the Committee. It isn't intended to be a space for community discussion about the case, or the background to it, or anything else. IIRC sectioned talk pages were first introduced (or at least an early use was) for a case during my tenure on the Committee (2015), where parties to the case (possibly Gamergate or Lightbreather, but I haven't checked) were seemingly incapable of sticking to the point and not carrying on the dispute that was being arbitrated. Making it hard to have conversations was part of the point and generally it worked at reducing the disruption.

If committee members were to float ideas and put early drafts of the PD in the workshop stage then most of the commentary currently on PD talk pages could go there, where the structure better allows for it. Sectioned comment on the PD talk page would therefore not be anywhere nearly as often desirable.

All that said a space for general constructive community comment on the case, that is strongly policed for on-topicness, civility, personal attacks (and attacks against the committee), and other disruption, is probably a good thing to have. The PD talk page is the wrong venue for it though - it should be a space that the committee are encouraged to read but not required to read - anything essential to the proposed decision should be concisely addressed to the committee on the PD talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 22:08, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

statement by WereSpielChequers

I have no strong opinions as to whether in your part of the wiki you have a different way of organising talkpages or not. But If you are going to have a non standard setup please use edit notices to inform people rather than hiding comments at the top of the page. Once a page runs to the sort of size your pages do, it is a reasonable expectation that a lot of people reading and commenting in one section won't remember some formatting comment at the top of the screen, they likely haven't even seen it. But they will see an edit notice, even if they are editing the fiftieth section on your page. ϢereSpielChequers 20:45, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Leaky Caldron

It helps to minimise edit conflicts and outdents. Do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Leaky caldron (talk) 21:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Threaded discussion and section headers on Arbitration talk pages: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Threaded discussion and section headers on Arbitration talk pages: Arbitrator views and discussion

• This isn't a unilateral action by the clerks, it's something that the clerk team and ArbCom has agreed upon. The reason we like sectioned discussion is that arbitration talk pages are supposed to be there for editors to offer input that helps arbs reach a discussion. They're not for general running commentary on the case. It doesn't stop people replying to each other (we have pings now), but it discourages long back-and-forths that have a tendency to stray off-topic and in any case are a chore to read for those of us that actually have to read them.

This is no different how, elsewhere on wiki, someone requesting an RfC can set the structure for that discussion, or how all sorts of other processes have their own special formats. The policy basis for clerks enforcing that structure is WP:ARBPOL, The clerks' functions include the administration of arbitration cases and management of all the Committee's pages and subpages; enforcing Committee decisions; implementing procedures; and enforcing good standards of conduct and decorum on the Committee's pages. We could easily add something about sectioned discussion to the clerk procedure page if that's helpful, but the fact that it isn't spelled out there yet doesn't mean it's outside policy. Frankly I think it's disingenuous of Beeblebrox to describe these as unknown rules based on invisible criteria: the rules are documented prominently at the top of every page we decide to apply sectioned discussion to, which I'm sure he knows. – Joe (talk) 05:48, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: The format of a talk page is not policy. It doesn't have any effect outside of arbitration proceedings. ArbCom is responsible for formulating its own processes and procedures under the arbitration policy. – Joe (talk) 19:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

• Our policies really only go as far as saying "clerks are responsible for maintaining order at arbitration talk pages" but don't really delve into how they can or cannot go about doing this. While I do think it's within both reason and policy for arbitrators to ask how discussions in arbspace be organized (and for clerks to re-organize as needed), it sounds like it's worth discussing whether this practice ought to be used (and when). If people are finding it hard to navigate, then we should weigh its benefits as far as preventing disruption against that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:00, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• I can only speak for myself, but I sometimes struggle to keep up with absolutely everything said on the case talk pages. I have no problem with people discussing the issue between themselves. In fact, it is probably helpful for the community to do so. I just cannot promise I will be able to read and follow the full exchange between two editors who are going back and forth. In that way, I found the section discussion helpful at the PD in particular in the same way case request statements are segregated. If the community does not feel it is the best way for them to be engaging on cases, then I am fine with going away from editor sectioned discussion. Mkdw ^talk 18:06, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: The sectioned comments were also supposed to make it easier for the committee to read comments directed at them (from the community) and then to reply directly back. If the community wants replies to their questions or comments in a separate section, I do not care as long as it is easier and makes sense. I would want to hear from others if they in fact want that as I have never heard anyone (before your comment now) suggest that receiving responses from the committee in their section was an elitist action. I actually would have assumed the community would want the committee to respond directly in their section (in a discussion format between them and the committee members), but I am not opposed to halting that practice if people do not want it. Mkdw ^talk 18:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• One of the roles of clerking is ensure that discussions do not get out of hand and allows people to contribute to those discussions. One of the tools available to clerks in managing that role is the implementation of sectioned discussion - which allows easy discussion with arbitrators and less easy but still possible discussion with other parties (thanks to the ping system). It's not needed in every case, and perhaps it's been used a little too much recently - something I think the committee and clerks should be aware of going forward. Worm^TT(talk) 09:16, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
• While I do not think a formal ruling or motion is required, I take on board Beeblebrox's concerns. We should be more thoughtful about the disadvantages of the "no threads" rule. In cases where fully restoring threaded conversation would be inappropriate, the committee should look at less obstructive formats. For example, we might keep "no threads" but introduce the ability of seconding statements more clearly (eg with a "Users endorsing this statement" sub-section). Or we might try having the talk page mirror the proposed decision, so that comments are more clearly associated with the text arbitrators are considering – and so that superseded discussions can be safely ignored. While there is scope for flexibility, I am okay opposing going back to free-form talk pages if it comes down to it. AGK ■ 20:49, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: German war effort (October 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by K.e.coffman at 14:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

German war effort arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German_war_effort#Remedies

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• K.e.coffman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification Peacemaker67

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German_war_effort#Remedies

• New remedy (please see statement)

Statement by K.e.coffman

Per the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort#General conclusion and remedy, "Further instances of uncollegial behavior in this topic-area will not be tolerated and, if this occurs, may result in this Committee's accepting a request for clarification and amendment to consider imposition of further remedies, including topic-bans or discretionary sanctions."

Instances of recent (August 2019) uncollegial behaviour by Peacemaker67:

1. An unprovoked personal jab: it makes me question whether this is yet another example of something that K.e.coffman just doesn't like, typically because there are Nazis involved. [1]
2. This is apparently in response to my comments [2] where I mentioned the word "trivia" once; another unprovoked jab: I just do not (...) accept K.e.coffman's perennial argument about what constitutes trivia in military history biographies. [3]
3. Relitigating the arbcom case at a Featured article review: I've made observations on the editing behaviour of two editors based on long experience, which I can back up with many diffs, many of which I used in the ArbCom case, particularly with respect to K.e.coffman. [4]
4. Accusations of a lack of competence and having an ideological motivation: They both [K.e.coffman & Assayer] have demonstrated over an extended period significant deficiencies in understanding what is a relevant piece of information for a military biography (...), and both constantly harp on about useful and interesting information that has been included in good faith in the interests of our readers. With these two editors, this only occurs in the cases of Nazis... [5]
5. Doubling down on aspersions after they have been pointed out to Peacemaker67 by others: It is not a personal attack to point out a pattern of editing behaviour and a demonstrated lack of experience or knowledge in these matters. [6]

The diffs 2 through 5 are from Wikipedia:Featured article review/Albert Kesselring/archive1 where I have not mentioned Peacemaker67 nor engaged with his arguments in any way. Yet he found it appropriate to attack me and another contributor.

Compare with pre-Arbcom diffs, with the same tone and similar language:

• I'm getting a little sick of this constant carping on about KC recipients. [7]
• This whole thing is of a piece with an ongoing campaign by coffmann (with a supporting role by Assayer) (...) I'm frankly sick to death of it. [8]
• A problem (...) has to be that of the very hard line anti-Nazi de WP which is now being aggressively pushed here by a few editors. [9].
• See further: ARBGWE evidence#Peacemaker encouraged MILHIST coordinators to monitor my editing and ARBGWE evidence#Peacemaker cast aspersions.

Since the arbcom case concluded, I've observed other instances of Peacemaker67's incivility and combattiveness, as well as claiming special status as a project coordinator; these comments were directed at me and another contributor: "too smart by half"; "ambit claim"; "if you want to be a coord, run at the next election"; "Because we have been elected by the members of the project to administer parts of the project (...). You haven't"; etc.

I discussed these and other diffs on Peacemaker67's Talk page in December 2018: User talk:Peacemaker67/Archive 20#Request. The responce was: The lack of self-awareness in this post is breathtaking.

I thus don't believe that further discussion with Peacemaker67 would be productive and I'm bringing this dispute here, based on a continued pattern of behaviour pre- and post-Arbcom case. I'm requesting an amendment to the case with either an admonishment, a warning, or a one-way interaction ban, depending on how the committee views these diffs. --K.e.coffman (talk) 14:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Peacemaker67

G'day everyone. This is an transparent attempt to re-litigate the German war effort case, in an attempt to achieve something KEC and his/her supporters were unable to achieve with the original case, that is some sort of sanction against me. It also digs up material that pre-dates the ArbCom case, and which was considered during the case, and for which I was not sanctioned, in an attempt to "fatten the brief". I can only assume this has been brought because KEC wishes to clear the field of editors that disagree with his/her POV and problematic editing approach. KEC comes to this request, as he/she did to the original case, with unclean hands, something that was pointed out by DeltaQuad in the findings of the case, due to his edit-warring, citation removal sprees and content removal sprees, the latter two of which continue unabated [10][11][12][13][14]. My views on KEC's editing approach were made clear in my evidence at the case, and I link it here for ease of reference. KEC's demonstrated editing behaviour has not changed since that time and I stick by my assessments of it, and do not apologise for restating it when it continues to be displayed. Long-term patterns of behaviour are telling in this regard, and one cannot indefinitely assume good faith when an editor fails to change their behaviour despite clear indications that there are problems with it. As I mentioned in my evidence during the case, I continue to avoid KEC wherever possible, because his/her "censorious editing behaviour, wikilawyering and repeated refusal to “drop the stick” [are] frankly quite odd, unpleasant and exhausting". The attempt to insinuate that I am in any way pro-Nazi because I believe all military biographies (including those on Nazis) should be balanced, neutral and contain appropriate levels of detail is given the lie by several FAs I have written on senior Nazis such as August Meyszner. I provided links to the rest in my evidence at the case, so I won't repeat them all here but the whole idea is risible.

This particular issue is a content issue regarding the Albert Kesselring article, which is currently undergoing a FAR brought by KEC, and I have contributed to the FAR having been alerted to it by dint of being a member of WikiProject Military history. I otherwise normally avoid KEC, for the reasons stated above, unless he/she edits a page on my watchlist. KEC and several other editors believe that the Kesselring article should be delisted as a FA, and several others, including myself, disagree. In fact, nearly all of those that think it should be delisted are represented here already, which should tell Arbs something. I have made clear, both in the case and on the FAR page that I consider KEC's views on what should be in a Featured military biography betray a lack of understanding of what should be included in a military biography. This is an issue of competence which KEC should have developed by now but apparently refuses to acquire. This has been clearly shown hundreds of times. The problem here is not only that KEC has never written a FA on a military person or even reviewed any that I am aware of (except this FAR), but that he/she works almost entirely on Nazis biographies (often through deleting material from their articles, or nominating and prosecuting their delisting, see Pudeo's statement), and has consistently failed to demonstrate that he/she has acquired knowledge during his time on WP of what the general consensus (developed over the creation and review of hundreds of FA military biographies by the Wikipedia community) is regarding what sort of detail should be included in such biographies. He/she has made thousands of edits deleting what he/she sees as "trivial" information from military biographies, almost all on Nazis. KEC's definition of "trivia" is extremely broad, and includes details of early life and World War I service, meaning that all that often remains is material on their World War II service and any war crimes. Essentially, due to KEC's narrow focus on Nazis and war crimes and lack of knowledge or acceptance about what a comprehensive military biography should look like, he/she only possesses an anti-Nazi hammer, and sees everything as a nail. If he/she had actually developed military biography articles to FA him/herself (perhaps even outside the narrow area of Nazis as well), he/she would have had to develop the necessary competence and modify his/her views in order to get consensus from other editors for the articles to be promoted, but because he/she has not done that he/she remains unmoved. As I said during the case, this behaviour does not contribute to the encyclopaedia, it harms it. KEC has done good work elsewhere, but this problematic behaviour continues. These are not "aspersions", they are observable facts, and I provided many diffs demonstrating their existence during the case, and have added a few more above.

Drmies was completely out of line in suggesting in the Kesselring FAR that Hawkeye7 could be blocked for disagreeing with the comments by KEC. Just because KEC makes a comment does not mean it is accurate, and the suggestion that Hawkeye7 could be blocked for disagreeing with KEC smacks of an attempt to intimidate. I suggested Drmies step back and take a deep breath because it was completely inappropriate behaviour to be threatening an editor because they did not agree with a criticism. If Drmies found that patronising that says more about them than me, and also doesn't make it so, nor does telling someone to step back and take a deep breath when they have threatened another editor constitute a personal attack.

No sanction is warranted here, because I have provided evidence for all of the comments I have made about KEC's editing behaviour and competence (and which have not been directed at his/her character), either here or in the original case. My observations about KEC's editing behaviour and competence are based on many diffs (above and in the case) and long experience. They are not "aspersions", because an aspersion is an attack on the integrity of a person. I have not commented on KEC's integrity or character, I have made observations on KEC's demonstrated editing behaviour and competence to draw conclusions about a content matter on which he/she is advancing his/her opinion. Neither are any of these comments a personal attack. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:09, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I'll add that, when it comes to "clean hands", it is hardly "collegial" behaviour for KEC to maintain a user page that mocks the efforts of good faith editors and "grave-dances" over his/her "victories". Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:10, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Also, to Szzuk and others advancing conspiracy theories regarding MILHIST, clearly MILHIST is a branch office of the Cabal, and we must be stopped. The lack of MILHIST people piling on here despite many of them stalking my user talk page (unlike KEC's boosters who found their way here without any difficulty) put the lie to this nonsense. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:05, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Drmies

This is not unexpected. I was very dismayed by Hawkeye's comments at the FA review for Wikipedia:Featured article review/Albert Kesselring/archive1, but given their history of ownership and antagonism "none of this is true" was maybe to be expected (and yes, I consider calling another editor "liar" to be blockworthy, esp. when the subsequent attention to the review proves that the editor concedes that at least some "of this" was true). What I did not expect was Peacemaker's personal attacks and belligerence--just search for "Drmies you need to take a deep breath and step back", twice. Note that another editor agreed this was ad hominem (I don't think I know Figureofnine very well, and this comment suggests they have a properly uninvolved view). Playing the man, not the ball, is definitely "uncollegial behavior".

And while we're at it, perhaps the committee is interested in this little note by Pudeo, which is just as bad. Pudeo wasn't part of the first case, I know. Drmies (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Pudeo

The approaches here are just fundamentally different. Most content is far from perfect in Wikipedia, even FAs. And indeed the newest FAR resulted in improvements. Yet K.e.coffman's drastical appraoch treats German military biographies in a vastly different manner than any other military biopgrahies, as discussed in the ArbCom case. Multiply this ad nauseam in various GA and FA reviews: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Albert Speer/archive1, Talk:Joachim Müncheberg/GA2, Talk:Erich Hartmann/GA1, Wikipedia:Featured article review/Albert Kesselring/archive1, and you might see some signs of frustration, as there usually is to WP:CPUSH. BTW, Assayer popped up in each of these reviews started by K.e.coffman despite his infrequent editing pace, hence my WP:TAGTEAM point.

None of the comments by Hawkeye7 or Peacemaker67 were actual personal attacks. While K.e.coffman's commentary is civil on the surface, it's hardly of the honest type. As DeltaQuad referenced in her proposed decision vote in #Conduct of K.e.coffman, K.e.coffman updates their userpage with post-dispute gloating and collects diffs of things their opponents have said in K.e.coffman/My allegedly problematic behaviour (which I nominated for MfD, no consensus §). As an example, they mock MisterBee1966 on the polemic userpage[15][16]; whereas MisterBee1966 had nominated K.e.coffman for Military History Newcomer of the Year in 2015. Talk about uncollegial behaviour. --Pudeo (talk) 18:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde (German war effort)

This request rather depresses me, because, to the best of my knowledge, I've gotten along quite well with most of the protagonists. So, I will confine myself to saying that if ARBCOM ends up examining this latest conflict, it should examine the behavior of all of those involved, and not just of the two named parties, whose conduct is not the most blame-worthy in this mess. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:22, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Figureofnine

I was just pinged by Drmies above and hence alerted to this request. The examples cited by KE coffman are disturbing. There needs to be zero tolerance of that kind of thing. Regretably a civility noticeboard dealing with just these kinds of issues was shut down a few years ago, which shows you how unseriously civility is viewed on Wikipedia. If editors can't abide by a simple civility directive they are a net negative to the project. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 19:34, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Assayer

After a pause of about four months I provided an extensive review of the article on Albert Kesselring [17]. PM67 saw it fit to comment on a brief addendum, claiming that this was typical of my criticisms and would demonstrate my significant deficiencies in understanding what is a relevant piece of information for a military biography. If someone openly picks up some minor point,[18] misrepresents the underlying argument and infers that this was proof of general incompetence, I call that a straw man argument. I do not understand, why PM67 somewhat routinely casts aspersions like that, because in general I have found them amenable to new historical research on war crimes. But they should be called upon to stop that and to focus on content.

As to Pudeo’s insinuation: Not only did I comment on Albert Speer and Albert Kesselring well before any FA review was initiated. I also rewrote a portion of the Speer article back in 2017 to keep it at FA level.[19] Besides, the verifiability of the content I provide may speak for itself. I got the impression that it is not my “editing behavior” (PM67) which annoys some authors, but my approach, which has been perceived as being “hard line anti-Nazi de WP” - as if an anti-Nazi approach was by any means a problem. The military history of Nazi Germany is indeed different from other military histories, because the German military became complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity to an extent hitherto unknown. To claim that this is a military history like any other promotes the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” and is not in line with the findings of military historiography.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Assayer (talk • contribs) 02:18, 31. August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Icewhiz

Biographies of Nazis (as other areas in which there are significant myth promotion and POV promotion - from some circles outside of Wikipedia) merit extra attention. At the very least we want avoid such non-mainstream lionizing content from creeping into Wikipedia.Icewhiz (talk) 06:45, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by SN54129

Re. This is an transparent attempt to re-litigate the German war effort case. There is a certain irony in the Lead coordinator for WP:MILHIST accusing others of relitigating it...when neither he personally nor his colleagues (by extension, MILHIST as a body) ever accepted the committee's ruling over GWE. From the September 2018 MILHIST coordinator elections—that opened less than a month after the case closed—of the candidates

• User:Arius1998 (said I have reservations with the specifics as exhibited in the findings of fact and the remedies)
• User:Auntieruth (said I did not agree with the findings of fact)
• User:Cinderella157 (said the decision generally lacks credibility, although to be fair had just been topic-banned)
• User:Hawkeye7 (said I cannot agree with the findings of fact)
• User:Kges1901 (said I disagreed with several of the FoFs and some of the remedies)
• User:Peacemaker97 (said they had have reservations about a couple of the FoF)
• User:Zawed (said Some of the findings and remedies didn't seem to match the evidence presented)

Of those seven, six were elected. The philosophy has not changed, and this is at the heart of the current request: the same mindhive-approach and intransigence to change that caused the original case was literally, unambiguously, restated less than a month after WP's governing body adjudicated. Now, everyone's entitled to disagree with arbcom, of course;* but when one's disagreement is in effect a refusal to take on board valid community criticisms, leading to the reoccurrence of the same behaviors, then it's beyond being a mere disagreement and is actively disruptive. ——SerialNumber54129 11:59, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

* I've been known to do so myself on occasion :)

PS, is there a word limit here? ——SerialNumber54129 11:59, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Szzuk

My opinion is this;

• a) MILHIST are an unofficial canvassing board
• b) A command structure is in place; there is a commanding officer and subordinate officers
• c) There is a system of rewards; barnstars, badges, A Class reviews, GA and FA support
• d) There is a system to co-ordinate the "protection" of FA and GA
• d) There is a system of punishments; exclusion, narky remarks, obstruction, personal attacks and in the original ARBCOM case wikihounding

The Kesselring article is full of Nazi apologia and MILHIST are protecting it. It doesn't look like much has changed since the original ARBCOM. The KEC talk page is the unofficial anti-MILHIST page and that situation won't change until this matter is sorted out.Szzuk (talk) 12:20, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Dlthewave

One of the principles of the case, "Criticism and casting aspersions", reads An editor must not accuse another of inappropriate conduct without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. Comments should not be personalized, but should instead be directed at content and specific actions. Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions can be considered a personal attack. If accusations are made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate dispute resolution forums. (emphasis mine). The diffs presented by K.E. Coffman demonstrate that Peacemaker has continued to ignore the principle even after the close of the case.

Our civility standards apply regardless of any content dispute or conduct issue on the part of another editor. If Peacemaker and others notice a pattern of problematic behavior, this needs to be raised at the appropriate venue, not on these various article and project talk pages. –dlthewave ☎ 16:00, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Dank

I'd prefer not to say anything. Please don't take on an explosive issue like this one at a time when there's too much to do and not enough people to do it. - Dank (push to talk) 11:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC) [Tweaked to remove "Framgate" 18:07, 14 September 2019 (UTC)]

@Worm: Sigh. - Dank (push to talk) 10:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mkdw: Thanks for that. - Dank (push to talk) 18:35, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Laser brain

I don't recall having ever had any interactions with K.e.coffman nor was I familiar with this case until now. I followed the Featured Article Review discussion for Albert Kesselring here and read up on all the background. That said, I find this filing to be borderline frivolous and the examples posted of PM's or Hawkeye's alleged transgressions to be utterly unconvincing. Having deep experience in the Featured article process, which includes our most rigorous review of content, these interactions strike me as normal discourse when there are content disagreements. I don't see any personal attacks or aspersions, nor do I view it as problematic to point out obvious patterns in editing behavior. --Laser brain (talk) 13:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Alex Shih

Although I understand arbitrators are preoccupied with some of the current affairs, I would like to think that common courtesy would be to at least acknowledge this amendment request in the very minimum instead of the radio silence for nearly one month now. The German war effort case was unfortunately one of these cases where cores issues were never resolved due to limitations of what the committee can do. There were never any gross breach of civility, but the committee can certainly opine on the difference between uncollegial behaviour and regular heated discussion in a contentious topic area. In my opinion, Peacemaker67 can certainly be less hostile toward K.e.coffman; it doesn't matter if every accusation is substantiated, there is no need to summarise your findings in a personalised way. And it's not helpful, as a general approach, to dismiss concerns simply because they are not consistent with the consensus of the MILHIST project.

However, this needs to happen concurrently with K.e.coffman also reflecting on their own approach, including posting the very request at Peacemaker67's talk page rather than soliciting community input from noticeboards, which is what the remedies have suggested prior to seeking amendments. Personally I don't think anything can be done here again; there weren't any lines crossed from neither sides, and since there weren't any interest from the committee to examine K.e.coffman's approach toward the topic area, as I have originally proposed ([20]), I cannot really see a way moving forward at the moment. Like Pudeo mentioned above, it is simply a clash of two fundamentally different approaches, and de-moralising for both sides. Alex Shih (talk) 13:33, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: While I thank you for being the only member that responded after being pushed to do so, it has been a week and yet here we are with the continued silence. You may also want to remind your colleagues that ignoring ARCA entirely while editing elsewhere on Wikipedia is explicitly inconsistent with WP:ARBPOL and not acceptable in any terms. If the strategy is to wait until everybody lose interest, that is not okay; problems will not go away simply by ignoring them. But for now, either have the decency to acknowledge the points raised in this request or just archive it straight away if none of the committee members are willing or could do so. Thanks, Alex Shih (talk) 06:23, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Piotrus

Do we have any active mediators who could help here? I know, rhetorical question, probably not. In which case, forgive me for touting my own horn, but as I suggested in a peer reviewed article on significance of conflict in our community (for free access, go to Sci-Hub), WMF should hire several full time psychologists to act as mediators and such. I know some, if mostly in passing, some of the parties here. They (you...) are all good people who want to help build an encyclopedia. But eroding good faith leads to vicious spiral into battlegrounds that ends up either with voluntary or forced retirement of some of the parties. This is not good, and mostly inactive ArbCom hardly helps. Seriously, it is time to push WMF to spent at least some of the funds on getting us the full time help we need. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:03, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

German war effort: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

German war effort: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Just to note that I am aware of this request and thank the partipants for their patience. I hoped to comment last week, however I have been trying to catch up on many things that have been left behind over recent months. I will be commenting next week. There is no auto archiving facility on this page, it will not be archived without a request from Arbcom. Worm^TT(talk) 06:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yes Alex, I'm aware that it's been nearly a week since I said "next week", however I've been tied up with other stuff. I've put a reminder on the list that there's been little comment at ARCA recently, and we could do with some eyes. I'm hoping to comment myself today. Worm^TT(talk) 08:02, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

  Ok, some thoughts. Peacemaker67's comments, raised by K.e.coffman, are not likely to encourage collaboration between the two - however, I do see the comments as the sort of thing you get in at typical robust discussion at an FA review. I personally don't see them rising to the point of admonishment / interaction ban or other sanction at present, however if Peacemaker does carry on at that level persistently or indeed escalates his level of commentary, then I would likely change that opinion. I do also find Serial Number 54129's point about the MILHIST co-ordinators interesting, and would counsel the MILHIST group to bear in mind that it does risk becoming a walled garden when like minded people are managing everything - however, beyond that, there's nothing more to say. Worm^TT(talk) 09:05, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

  In addition, aside from the grumbling about Arbcom members not being around, I encourage participants to read Alex Shih's comments, which are quite insightful. Worm^TT(talk) 09:07, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• The topic area is obviously a crowded place where the same people are invariably going to keep running into each other. Disagreements are bound to arise. In looking only at the August 2019 diffs provided in this ARCA, I am not seeing anything that would rise to the need for ArbCom to be involved yet. I would encourage the community to make best efforts to resolve issues respectfully while allowing a healthy amount of disagreement and criticism. I will say that all editors should absolutely refrain from commenting about the competency of editors who have clearly shown themselves to be proficient and capable contributors. Mkdw ^talk 18:19, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
• I apologize for not commenting here earlier; the unfoggy brain cells have been needed elsewhere. I read the comments above and the Kesselring FAR, and I agree with Mkdw and WTT that there's not anything for us to do here quite yet. KEC, your user page is problematic. Peacemaker, whether you like it or not, SN54129 has a point. Any small group with any kind of privilege – and that includes this committee – runs the risk of groupthink. Be careful that MILHIST doesn't become a place where that groupthink crowds out those who genuinely disagree. Katie^talk 18:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Concur with my colleagues that we do not need to examine Peacemaker's conduct. I shall submit a further piece of guidance: K.e.coffman's participation in this matter does not impress. Going by their own timeline, K.e. has been politely and reasonedly criticised by Peacemaker on a handful of occasions – hardly unexpected. K.e. has never written back to Peacemaker, except when they wrote this December 2018 post addressing marginal issues about tone without rebutting the substantial concerns. K.e. now comes to this committee, asking us to examine Peacemaker's conduct. I suggest K.e.coffman try dealing with the points of Peacemaker or others at an early point; they may even find that discussion resolves matters. Nothing in this comment should discourage further applications for consideration under the general remedy, from K.e.coffman or others. AGK ■ 20:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Sexology (November 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Jokestress at 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Sexology arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology#Jokestress topic-banned from human sexuality

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Jokestress (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology#Jokestress topic-banned from human sexuality

• Lift of topic ban

Statement by Jokestress

I'd like this topic ban reviewed, please. My many created articles on value-neutral scientific concepts in sexuality have stood the test of time as NPOV helpful contributions. Example: Androphilia and gynephilia has hundreds of readers daily, and the terms remain widely used by ethical researchers despite the failed attempt to get it deleted here. The graphics I created for that article have been used in books. The sexologists who disagree with me [21] had their clinic shut down [22] since I was last editing. They and their like-minded allies still remain active editors here. Wikipedia has not kept up with the advances in the field. A few editors with very rigid medicalized views on sex and gender minorities maintain ownership of this subject area, causing our coverage to lag behind the published literature. It bothers me to see such an important topic become so outdated. I promise to be nice and not get frustrated with anonymous editors even when they deadname me, misgender me, and so on. I realize it just goes with the territory of using your real name. Sexuality was a small part of my edit history, but it is an area where I have extensive knowledge. Hope I did this right! Jokestress (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

• Re Floq, my point in the example given is that my editing in human sexuality has resulted in more balanced coverage and viewpoint diversity that reflects the published literature, not just in science but in all fields of academic inquiry. I am a longtime editor in the most controversial academic subject areas like race and intelligence. That debate is very similar in that it is sometimes presented as a "scientific debate" when it is in fact a debate ABOUT science. If Wikipedians treated sex science the way we treat race science, the project would be much more reflective of the published literature. Unfortunately, editors with a medicalized POV have a death grip on the entire subject area. If Wikipedia had been around when "science" claimed gay people had a disease, a gay editor would be in my same position. Since I can't give examples of other editor behavior, just take a look at any article about the intersection of sexuality and consent. If anyone wants some specific examples, my email is open on my profile. I'm once again in a position where I can't elaborate or make my case without breaking some rule. Jokestress (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
• Re Thryduulf, my POV (scientific consensus) prevailed in the controversy to which you're referring off-wiki, but the other POV (fringe views on human sexuality) prevails here on Wikipedia. Jokestress (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
• Re Flyer22 and related accounts/IPs, use of the rhetoric "threat to the community" to describe another Wikipedian is the sort of behavior I no longer consider frustrating. I'll ignore it because I want our coverage of human sexuality to reflect the latest published work from all fields of inquiry. Jokestress (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
• Re Crossroads, the standard Rind bio I wrote [23] is a perfect example of how Wikipedia keeps getting worse because of the small group of editors in this subject area. I have written hundreds of similar biographies after finding a red link somewhere. Crossroads' claim that I added "unnecessary things to make its subject look good" is typical of the kind of aspersions these editors make. I'm not even allowed to respond to such accusations without threats of further action. There is no assumption of good faith for anyone who tries to include reliable sourcing with which they don't agree, no matter how scientific or reliable. No merging of the relevant content from the Rind bio after deletion. Not even a redirect. Wikipedia is demonstrably less useful because of this. Crossroads' other example is too complicated to get into here, but it is another example of a scientific and value-neutral term used by experts that distinguishes three phenomena. I made a little Venn diagram on that page to show how experts think about these topics. I know emotions run high on these topics, but the suggestions that I am "pro-" this or that have been oversighted as actionable libel in the past. It's truly outrageous that even in my absence it doesn't stop. Jokestress (talk) 00:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• Re SMcCandlish, every reliable published source I was trying to get included on Wikipedia in 2013 still represents scientific consensus or notable criticism of that consensus. Most of it is still not here. I've sat by for 7 years hoping Wikipedia would catch up with the published literature on sexuality, but here we are, stuck in the 20th century. It seems pretty clear that things won't change until the Wikipedia community takes a hard look at its complicity in perpetuating outdated views on human sexuality. I'm happy to elaborate if I won't get in some sort of trouble for contravening my "punishment." I keep hoping I won't have to do what I did with hemovanadin to try to wake people up around here. That didn't wake anyone up, either. All I got was a lot of angry messages like the ones below, as if I am the problem. We'll see how this discussion goes. Jokestress (talk) 07:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• re Genericusername57, yes! Exactly! ARBpeople, this comment gets to the heart of what I consider the discriminatory practices of this community. Without specifics, I'll simply say that several editors in human sexuality have stated they have "a personal, possibly monetary [professional], conflict of interest" in the outcome of our sexuality coverage. A professional working to get favorable coverage of their fringe views about a sexual minority gets preferential treatment over a member of that minority, even if that minority member is trying to shape articles to reflect expert consensus and notable dissent. This double standard is discriminatory on its face. I was taken out of the equation in 2013, and the problem has only gotten quantifiably worse since then. There is currently a culture war within sexology and a sea change happening in the professional literature that is not reflected in our coverage (with exceptions). Anyone who tries to address this discrepancy here runs into these editors and their sympathetic proxies. As Oldperson observes, these editors are very good at getting their way through sheer numbers and Wikilawyering. They make collaboration so difficult, and the subject matter is so controversial, that even the most seasoned editors stay away by choice or force, leaving them in near-complete control of one of the most vital topics covered on the project. Jokestress (talk) 16:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• re JzG, the hostility and accusations you note are part of the strategy. Uninvolved editors aren't going to collaborate when they are accused of being "pro-pedophile" or worse by the handful of people who control this subject. I can't believe these people are not straight-up banned for using sex offender rhetoric like "threat to the community" to describe other editors. Nothing has changed in 7 years. Jokestress (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• re Aircorn, my 2013 topic ban is on "human sexuality, including biographies." Since most transgender editors were driven from the project during the Sexology and Manning naming dispute Arbcoms in 2013, there's no one left to monitor policy violations on transgender biographies and so on, like today's deadnaming of a trans woman who died yesterday [24]. I'm asking for my topic ban to be lifted because there's a double standard in how we treat editors based on who they are. I also want Arbcom policy clarified and applied equally to all editors. Jokestress (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• re Katie & Joe, yes, that is the problem. I am unable to edit anything in my area of expertise without being accused of this or that. How can I show diffs with evidence of collaboration if I'm not allowed to collaborate? What is my path to forgiveness? I can't even make suggestions on talk pages that uninvolved editors agree with [25] without running into drama. Was it "illegal" for me to remove policy violations at Nikki Araguz today? [26] Was it illegal for me to improve the sourcing? [27] Nikki was even more "controversial" than I am. No one else was going to do it, though. Anyone who cared was driven away in 2013 by two back-to-back Arbcom cases about systemic bias toward sex and gender minorities on this platform. Jokestress (talk) 07:38, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
• Thanks for considering my request! This has all been quite elucidating. So just to confirm the answer to my earlier question above: I will be sentenced to wiki jail again if I remove transphobic vandalism from a trans activist's biography on the day she dies, the day the article will get the most views it will ever get. Just want to confirm where the community's priorities are here. PS happy Transgender Awareness Week! Jokestress (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
• @Joe Roe: "was the idea to t-ban Jokestress from all biographies?" Sexology is not a large area of my editing. I am a generalist who happens to be a notable expert on sex and gender minorities editing under her real name. I'm also known for attempting to reform Wikipedia and problematic community conduct in relation to its profound biases about sex and gender, as well as its general hostility to women. That puts me in an unusual situation. Of the many biographies on sexologists that I created, there were about half a dozen that were related to an offsite matter that resolved to "my POV" in 2015 (scientific and legislative consensus). I believe those edits over a decade ago were generally fair, but I had acknowledged my COI and not edited any for some time prior to my 2013 "conviction" here. Here's my response from last time to a similar question. [28] As far as trans biographies, I wrote or improved many of those, none of the contents of which have been disputed to my knowledge. I have probably created a thousand biographies all told. It was my understanding that it was not all biographies, but there was additional drama involving the same topics since I was taken out of the equation, leading to additional rules. The Wikimedia Foundation trustee who wrote about my 2017 efforts to reform Wikipedia said that the rules have expanded into an encyclopedia of their own.[29] If you set aside the rhetoric of my detractors and look at the balance of my work, you'll see that the locus of dispute re biographies is quite narrow. Jokestress (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
• @Premeditated Chaos: + @Mkdw: + @AGK: while I am sure the Amanda James article is affected by the same systemic gender bias I try to address here, I believe you mean the talk page for Andrea James. In an interesting coincidence, I was an All-American swimmer who swam the same event (100 back) as Amanda James. That does not need to be in my bio, though, as I am notable for more important things. It's tough being outstanding at everything you do-- at some point it all has to be edited down for saliency. Thank you for generously offering the chance to comment on my circa 2008 WP bio! Jokestress (talk) 12:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• @Joe Roe: Perhaps it's better to refer people to User:Jokestress, where I can maintain an up-to-date and well-sourced version that editors can use as source material if they wish. I believe that is clearly marked as a user page. I'm not interested in discussing my bio, as I find its quality, timeliness, and focus to be among the problems in need of reform. Retaliatory editing of a notable Wikipedian's bio during disputes is a serious matter for another day. Jokestress (talk) 13:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
• @GorillaWarfare:: I appreciate your thoughtful comments, as well of those of other Arbpersons. Obviously I am quite capable of productive collaboration and civil discussion on these topics with those holding opposing views, and I agree that a path to lifting of sanctions should always be open. My larger concern here is the discriminatory application of rules. Expert retention rarely (if ever) gets applied to sex and gender minorities in these cases, but WP:ARBSEX is mainly (possibly always) used to sanction sex and gender minorities and their allies. Of course I am not the only one who could improve these topics, but I do find it interesting that in my 7-year absence, the people who tried to balance things a bit have quit or been banned. I know this committee focuses on user conduct, and most of my larger concerns are being addressed at the WMF level, but I ask you to review whether editors on one side get preferential treatment in matters of user conduct when disputes arise on these topics. Jokestress (talk) 23:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

Be careful not to violate your interaction ban; there was no need to bring up the AFD created by someone you're banned from talking about. That's a separate sanction. Also, while I'm here, I don't understand how the linked edit demonstrated misgendering; are you objecting to someone refering to you using the singular they? FWIW, I'm not familiar with the details underlying the case, but this request gives off a distinct battleground-ish vibe. I'm fairly confident that is not going to be a successful way to appeal a topic ban imposed for, among other things, previous relentless battleground behavior. Perhaps it isn't too late to self-reflect and change your approach? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress:, you're gaming the system; continuing to edit gender-related talk pages while this appeal of a human sexuality topic ban is going on (per @Aircorn:'s diff [30]), when it is very clear that a majority of people commenting believe that these edits violate that ban (and the few that aren't sure believe the topic ban should be expanded to include it). This is either civil disobedience, or a refusal to get the point. Unless directed not to do so by an Arbitrator, I intend to enforce the existing ArbCom human sexuality topic ban to include gender indentity. Until this ARCA request is resolved one way or the other, the next edit you make to a gender-related article or talk page will result in a 1 week block. This is a violation of an active topic ban, after several clear warnings by several involved AND uninvolved people over the last few days. I'm trying to bend over backwards to allow you to participate in this discussion, so I won't block for that edit, but this is a last warning that you cannot simply ignore an ArbCom topic ban. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

pinging @KrakatoaKatie: and @Worm That Turned: to give them an opportunity to tell me not to block next time. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Kingofaces43

Not involved in the subject at all, but I was curious and went back to the FoFs:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology#Conflict_of_interest_allegations
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology#Jokestress'_off-wiki_behavior

I have to agree with Floq that this seems to maintain an air of battleground seen back in those findings of fact. It seems like this editor is too close to the topic, so I'd be wary about removing the topic ban even though it's six years old. Focus on others and inability to address one's own problems after a ban is a good sign the sanction should remain in place. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf (re Sexology)

I am somewhat familiar with this case, and like Floq and Kingofaces43 I am struck by just how much of a battleground vibe this request gives off. Additionally, one of the findings of fact in this case related to Jokestress' off-wiki behavior: Jokestress is a prominent party to an off-wiki controversy involving human sexuality, in which she has been sharply critical of certain individuals who disagree with her views, and has imported aspects of the controversy into the English Wikipedia to the detriment of the editing environment on sexuality-related articles. I get the distinct impression from this request that they she would do exactly the same again were the topic ban lifted. There is nothing in the case that convinces me they she understood at the time why their her actions were problematic, and I see nothing in this request that convinces me that this has changed.

Accordingly I don't think that lifting the topic ban at this time will be a net positive to the project, and encourage the committee to decline it. Thryduulf (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

For reasons I cannot comprehend, Jokestess has accused me (on my talk page) of misgendering and being uncivil by using gender neutral pronouns. Nevertheless I have changed the pronouns I used above to avoid taking focus away from the subject of this request: i.e. Jokestress' behaviour that is incompatible with NPOV articles and a collegiate editing environment. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress: Firstly reread Wikipedia:Righting great wrongs, as I see no evidence you understand it. Secondly, if people are genuinely being inappropriately labelled paedophiles by editors who control the topic area as you allege then that is indeed a bad thing, but stressing that as your reason for wanting to return to the topic area is just further evidence you haven't left the battleground attitude behind. If there is evidence of the bad behaviour you cite then it will be easy for other editors to find and go through the appropriate dispute resolution processes. Thryduulf (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: and others re the topic ban scope. My impression from reading the original case and my memories is that the intention was to ban Jokestress from the biographies of people notable for their connection to sexology and other fields related to human sexuality, which would undoubtedly include people and groups notable for LGB activism. I think that it would be beneficial to extend and clarify that to something like Jokestress is indefinitely banned from the topics of human sexuality and gender, including LGBT+ rights and biographical articles about people notable in these topic areas.. I agree that a person simply being transgender should not mean they automatically come within the topic area, for one thing this could cause if Jokestress edits the article about a person who is transgender but does not make this public, especially if she (Jokestress) does not know they are transgender but another editor does. It might also be worth formally reminding Jokestress and others that discretionary sanctions are authorised for "All edits about, and all pages related to, (a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed" (these originated in the Manning Name Dispute and GamerGate cases, both of which post-date this one). Thryduulf (talk) 09:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

• Note For the edits to Nikki Araguz (a transgender marriage equality campaigner) identified by Aircorn in their section, i have blocked Jokestress for 1 week. Pinging the arbs who have commented so far @Joe Roe, Krakatoa Katie, and Worm That Turned: Thryduulf (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
• @Jokestress: regarding your latest question, read Wikipedia:Banning policy, particularly the WP:BANEX section. The first bullet point there makes it clear that you are allowed to revert " obvious vandalism (such as page content being replaced by obscenities) or obvious violations of the policy about biographies of living persons. The key word is "obvious" – that is, cases in which no reasonable person could disagree." (all emphases in original). If you find yourself doing this I strongly encourage you to mention in your edit summary that you are reverting obvious vandalism/obvious BLP violations. If the vandalism or violation is not obvious or you have any doubts whether it is obvious, and that includes cases where someone unfamiliar with the subject would not recognise it is as problematic, you can report it at WP:AIV or another appropriate venue for someone who is not topic banned to take care of. As with all things, if you abuse this in any way or if you make more than the occasional mistake about what is obvious vandalism/BLP violations then even this limited exception to your ban may be removed. Thryduulf (talk) 10:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• Arbs: I think it would be worth making an exception to the topic ban to allow Jokestress to comment at Talk:Andrea James, but solely to highlight (perceived) inaccuracies or where updates are required. I do not think we should prevent article subjects from leaving such comments on the talk page of the article about them without evidence they have disrupted that specific page. Thryduulf (talk) 18:41, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Crossroads: The proposed exemption allows only for edit requests for factual inaccuracies and updates, not general changes. Any "haranguing" of editors on that talk page and the exemption can (and would) be withdrawn (maybe a note that this can be done at AE could be included). If it is necessary for it to be withdrawn then that would be very good evidence against any future appeal of the topic ban, so it would be in her interests to behave (although I admit that hasn't stopped her previously). Thryduulf (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Flyer22 Reborn

I advise everyone to look at this recent ANI thread started by Crossroads, which outlines Jokestress's problematic editing in the areas of human sexuality and gender and how the editor has not changed. Even the above initial post, as noted by two editors before me, shows the same WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Please do not be fooled by several years having passed. As many know, I am one of the most active editors in the pedophilia and child sexual abuse topic areas, if not the most active, and I have helped get a lot of pedophile and child sexual abuse POV-pushers indefinitely blocked. In fact, Alison and I were key in having such editors blocked or alerting WP:ArbCom to these matters, and WP:CHILDPROTECT was created to help combat the issues. Editors such as Herostratus, Legitimus and myself (just a handful of editors) have consistently kept articles, such as Rind et al. controversy, free of POV-pushing from pedophiles, child sexual abusers and others looking to challenge the medicalization of pedophilia or downplay the effects of child sexual abuse. Over the years, some have come back as WP:Socks, and I have dealt with those as well (often with the help of certain CheckUsers, including Alison and Berean Hunter). Jokestress was savvy enough to avoid getting indefinitely blocked for her behavior in these areas, but she did get topic-banned, and for reasons I and others already outlined there. This editor is very much a threat to the community. Jokestress trying to paint this as silencing a transgender person does not cut it. For those of us who were there -- who know how problematic this editor was at pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics, and other topics -- this was never about Jokestress being transgender.

The sexology case clearly concerned transgender issues as well. And human sexuality is a broad topic, which significantly overlaps with gender (including transgender) aspects. We have various articles, including Transvestic fetishism, Gender variance and Childhood gender nonconformity that show this overlap. Childhood gender nonconformity, for example, very much aligns with an eventual gay, lesbian, or bisexual sexual orientation. Prospective studies have shown this. Furthermore, even Jokestress's first suggestion at Talk:Detransition shows overlap between sexuality and the transgender topic. But even if one thinks human sexuality doesn't cover detransition, it's still the case that making a comparison to the ex-gay movement, as Jokestress did at Talk:Detransition, is definitely on the subject of human sexuality, and therefore a topic ban violation. I do not see that, given her views (including on our policies and guidelines) and how she notoriously tries to go about getting those views implemented, this editor should be allowed to edit sexual or gender topics. This is a person who considers all medicalization a bad a thing, and has repeatedly tried to undermine Wikipedia rules such as WP:MEDRS. I especially don't see how anyone (except for pedophiles, child sexual abusers, and related POV-pushers) can be comfortable letting this person edit pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics. The "that was years ago" line of thinking does not hold up, as seen by their off-Wikipedia activity and recent behavior once finally back on Wikipedia. Jokestress has not changed in all of these years. Jokestress has simply behaved the same way off Wikipedia. Coming back to Wikipedia and acting the way she has recently acted, including ignoring two warnings about her editing in these areas, and it taking an ANI thread to get her to acknowledge that she should stop, speaks volumes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

And regarding this, this, this and this here and at ANI, WanderingWanda, who I have a tempestuous history with, should not be touching my posts. Nowhere did I call Jokestress a pedophile. The post relates to my experience with pedophile and child sexual abuser POV-pushers, and Jokestress having edited in a similar way -- the same exact thing I stated in the ArbCorm case against her. She was problematic in those areas due to her views on pedophilia and child sexual abuse, indeed challenging the medicalization of pedophilia or downplaying the effects of child sexual abuse, which was reiterated by Crossroads in his ANI thread against her. It is the main reason she was topic-banned from sexuality articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Given recent commentary below, I must state the following: Any claim that our Wikipedia transgender or transgender-related articles are being overran by anti-trans editors is false. There is far more activism going on at these articles than any anti-trans activity. Certain editors want one narrative presented as valid and that's it. If you note an opposing narrative and/or that this opposing narrative should be included and why, they may consider you transphobic/anti-trans. This is despite the fact that transgender people disagree with one another on these matters as well, as seen by this and this source commenting on left-wing transgender YouTuber ContraPoints coming under fire (from those who otherwise supported her) for daring to have different opinions and for daring to include a trans man (Buck Angel) with different opinions in one of her videos. People, both cisgender and transgender, have different views on what it means to be a woman (as recent discussions at Talk:Woman have shown). Disagreeing on that doesn't automatically make one transphobic/anti-trans. It doesn't make one a bad person. And yet we have editors comparing those who disagree to Nazis at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics and Talk:TERF. A transgender person with views that deviate from commonly held views in the transgender community may be labeled transphobic/categorized as suffering from internalized transphobia or as truscum. Even me noting that transgender YouTuber Blaire White has commented on this and linking to this YouTube video where she takes on claims of being a transphobic trans woman/a trans woman suffering from internalized transphobia can lead certain editors to deduce "Flyer is transphobic" (a claim recently rejected by the community). When I mention transgender people like White, it's me acknowledging that transgender people also have diverse views on these topics. It's just that, like White notes, certain voices within the transgender community are louder than others/are more commonly reported on (and more positively) in the media. If other transgender YouTubers or transgender public figures with White's views had Wikipedia articles, I'd mention them as well. The need to note different views on these topics and include those views in our Wikipedia articles if WP:Due is why editors should not be silenced by accusations of being transphobic/anti-trans (unless they truly are transphobic/anti-trans, although this, per what I've noted in this paragraph, can be subjective). This is why Fæ was topic-banned in August. This is why Jokestress editing transgender topics is problematic. Jokestress being transgender doesn't mean that Jokestress editing transgender topics is a good thing. Jokestress is here, like always, to push a narrative. And if anyone disagrees with that narrative, that person is Jokestress's enemy and/or, according to Jokestress, is transphobic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Oldperson

I am not at all familiar with the Fae and Jokestress situation, and I do not have a cell phone much less a twitter account. I am cognizant of one thing, that the anti trans editors outnumber and are more active than the pro trans or trans neutral editors. And are quite expert at wp:wikispeak and adept at almost undectable WIKILAWYERING. Thus an opportunity to TBAN a trans advocate increases their ability to push their POV. As regards lumping everything under the topic Human Sexuality is misguided. Pedophilia may have been accepted in ancient Greece and Rome, but it has proven o have harmful/damaging psychological and social effects in the modern age. Some ancient cultures engaged in child sacrifice, but we don't today, I sanction a ban on advocates of pedophilia. But pedophilia is not akin to transsexualism or homosexuality except in the propaganda of many on the religious right. And thus oppose the lumping of transgenderism/transsexuality under the broad umbrella of Human Sexualiity, as much as it might appear to make sense. That or topic bans need to be made narrower and more well defined.Oldperson (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

I want to carefully word this, as to not cast apserions on other editors,but in truth there is a dearth of voices that can speak for the transgendered on wikipedia, especially when the most vocal like Fae and Jokestress have been banned or blocked from speaking out,leaving only a smattering of pro or neutral editors to offset very vocal and "anti-trans" or trans critical editors to dominate the articles and their talk pages, with well practiced civil POV pushing.Oldperson (talk) 23:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

I have read enough about Jokestress' real-world interactions with others who do not wholeheartedly share her views to be uncomfortable with a simple lifting of this ban.

I do not share the evident alarm and hostility of, say, Crossroads, but I do not think that Jokestress is a comfortable fit for the topic area of gender, and especially transgender, despite her being substantially correct in many cases. Guy (help!) 14:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress: for what it's worth, I do not factor those arguments in at all. My judgment is based solely on what you have written yourself. Guy (help!) 16:51, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Crossroads

I urge the Committee to instead reaffirm the topic ban, and clarify that it includes transgender topics. Transgender topics were an integral part of the case. The discretionary sanctions, though now rescinded as redundant to the GamerGate discretionary sanctions, were authorized for all pages dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification. [31]

Jokestress was topic banned for good reason, and all the evidence indicates that she has not changed since that time and will immediately resume her old behavior. Indeed, she already has.

I only started editing Wikipedia in 2018, but when looking at the history of her article Bruce Rind, which was successfully deleted at AfD, I found out about her and read the Sexology arbitration case and many of the links therein. I encourage anyone who wants to weigh in to look for themselves. The evidence page from that case contains even more info. [32] From all this, it is clear that Jokestress takes an inappropriate-for-Wikipedia, completely activist approach to sexuality and gender, one that is anti-science, anti-medical (in contradiction to WP:MEDRS), anti-reliable-sources when those sources are ones she does not like (which is often), and frankly, at times is questionable regarding WP:CHILDPROTECT.

Since she mentions she has created sexuality articles, I will point to her article Adult sexual interest in children. This was deleted at AfD for being a POV fork of Pedophilia.

Some statements made by Jokestress about pedophilia

Another major issue with how this is presented is the undue weight we give to the term as co-opted by psychology etc. to describe a disease/disorder. Saying "pedophilia is a disorder" is merely reification of the concept and a violation of WP:NPOV. The term paidophilia existed for centuries before being appropriated by Krafft-Ebing to describe a psychopathology. It's only since the moral panics of the 1970s that a whole cottage industry of catching and "curing" this population emerged. [33] "...survey of human adult–child sexual behavior worldwide indicated it has occurred throughout history with varying degrees of acceptability and was much more prevalent in the past...."; "Intuitively it is obvious that the sexual abuse of children inflicts deep psychological harm. But there are also reasons to distrust this intuition. First of all, it could reflect an irrational taboo about the sexuality of children. The idea that children should be sexually innocent is not universal; in fact, it is relatively modern..." [34] Note: this is a quote by Herostratus of a now deleted article written by Jokestress, who never denied having written those words, and who had just recently created the article. [35] Those interested in getting this policy reviewed should do so at Wikipedia_talk:Child_protection and should make no mention of their reasons for involving themselves in this topic, particularly if their sexual interests have any connection with this subject. [36]

After the Sexology case, she left Wikipedia for 6.5 years. During this time, her attitude about the Wikipedia community did not change. She still has the mentality of bending Wikipedia to a certain POV, the hostile us-against-them approach, and her attitude about WP:WINNING, as evidenced by some of her tweets just from the last few months.

Tweets

This @CreativeCommons infographic I made ended up in a 2018 @thamesandhudson book by @sally_hines! One of my dim bulb haters tried & failed to get the accompanying article deleted from @Wikipedia. Support my newest #dataviz - The Transphobia Project: [link] [37] Deletionists continue stripping @Wikipedia of helpful disambiguation pages. Now they are even stripping away redirects that might help young visitors. Amazing to watch the site slowly gutted from within like a termite infestation. #wikipedia [38] Now that @Wikipedia drove away #sex & #gender minorities, deletionists & fringe ideologues have free rein to distort coverage. They even want to delete helpful redirects, having already gutted articles, disambiguation pages, & images. I could be banned just for citing this: [image of transfan definition] [39]

Now, her recent behavior. At her return, after some userspace edits, she went straight to the lead of the article Detransition, adding in that Direct, formal research of "detransition" has shown political parallels between the ex-trans movement and the ex-gay movement. Mentioning the ex-gay movement is editing about human sexuality, hence a topic ban violation. The source for this was an activist article in a predatory journal, and she added other activist non-WP:MEDRS sources as well. On the talk page she claimed This is a classic "phenomenon vs. term" political debate. This biased article reifies a transphobic ideology akin to the ex-gay movement. She continued suggesting activist sources on the talk page, [40][41] even though she had been warned about this likely being a topic ban violation. [42][43]

Both here and at the short-lived recent ANI thread [44] she continues unremorseful with the same attitude. She just referred to "Flyer22 and related accounts/IPs", showing the same combativeness and bad faith assumptions.

Jokestress' latest ploy appears to be claiming that she has to be here to correct Wikipedia's supposedly biased treatment of this topic. This is wrong for at least 4 reasons: (1) The comparison with race issues is a false analogy. Race issues are not a "debate about science"; rather, science refutes racist ideology, and as for so-called race science, as the article linked to says, Scientific racism is a pseudoscientific belief. (2) Like other WP:FRINGE theory pushers, Jokestress is claiming Wikipedia's coverage of a topic is unbalanced and needs her to correct it. However, loading it up with her cherry-picked sources is likely to lead to WP:FALSEBALANCE. (3) There is no reason to think our coverage of sexuality and gender is biased so that she is needed to correct it. I speak from experience that these topics have editors with a wide variety of viewpoints already, including many who are openly LGBT, and the consensus building process works as it should. (4) Even if it were true that our articles were unbalanced, Jokestress is not the person to help us correct it. Her hostile approach will drive editors away. And the sources she adds are poor. [45][46] They are all activist, are opinionated partisan media pieces, and/or from a predatory journal.

We know her behavior patterns; they're documented for us in the previous case. If her topic ban is lifted, our gender and sexuality articles will be loaded up with carefully selected opinionated sources in service of an agenda. Anyone who opposes this will experience opposition until they are driven away or worn down. What do we expect? She is an activist, and activists engage in activism. And as for the articles specifically on pedophilia, with the comments from her quoted above, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader what that will end up like.

Her topic ban should stay, and it should be clarified that it does cover transgender topics. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:21, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@KrakatoaKatie: To be clear, what is being suggested is not a widening of the topic ban, but rather clarity that it was always meant to be included. Indeed, it is being treated as included already both at ANI and here. Clarity in the topic ban description is needed because this user apparently intends to wikilawyer and edit as close to the edge of her ban as possible. (And in any case, the reasons for her original topic ban apply just as much to transgender topics as to sexuality in the narrow sense.)

I'll briefly address Jokestress' latest comments. Her statement several editors in human sexuality have stated they have "a personal, possibly monetary [professional], conflict of interest" in the outcome of our sexuality coverage. appears to be false; there is no "several" I have ever heard of, and this appears to be a thinly veiled reference just to User:James Cantor, whom she is banned from talking about. Her claims of being indispensible, of most trans editors having been driven away, of a conspiracy of editors having shut down debate, are simply untrue, indeed absurd from my experience in these topics. The issue is not just a lack of evidence of collaboration on her part; it is positive evidence that nothing has changed since last time; that she is actively uninterested in collaborating, but instead in winning, activism, and promotion of fringe views; that she is not sorry for her past behavior; that the same behavior and attitude continues off-wiki; and that it is essentially impossible for her to contribute NPOV content on this topic. As another example of this in particular, check out this enormous "enemies list" style chart on this site [47] titled "academic pathologization of transgender people". -Crossroads- (talk) 06:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Thryduulf; and Premeditated Chaos and the other arbitrators: My opinion on the proposed exemption is that she will end up haranguing others on that talk page to get the article changed to her liking. She already has her apparently preferred version lined up here: [48] A big part of the reason for the topic ban is her inability to edit in this topic area, including bios, in cooperation with others (and the record shows this includes talk page discussions). See also the digging up of poor sources on the Detransition talk page: [49] Her own bio will be no different. It can be handled the same as most of our bios: by uninvolved editors in accord with BLP. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare (and the other arbitrators): It doesn't matter at all how Jokestress edits in other topic areas. That was never the problem, back then or now. She was not topic banned for behavior in those areas. The problem then and now, on and off-wiki, is how she approaches and handles this topic. Her attitude on-wiki is the same as that off-wiki, which has always been consistent. If it continues, as it almost certainly will, then she is fundamentally incompatible with how Wikipedia works in this area, due to COI/NOTSOAPBOX issues (not to mention her views on pedophilia; compare WP:CHILDPROTECT). I see no need to spend precious time relitigating this again in a mere 6 months (or ever, really) without a fundamental change in Jokestress' approach to this topic, which is extremely unlikely due to her deep seated activist focus. She has every right to be an activist in the real world, but this is not what Wikipedia is for. -Crossroads- (talk) 06:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by SMcCandlish

I also ask ArbCom to reaffirm the topic ban, and to clarify that it includes transgender topics, more generally than ArbCom has said this already. While such a clarification that "human sexuality" includes "pages having to do with transgender topics and issues" appeared in the recent-ish Fæ ARCA, that user's restrictions read "human sexuality, broadly construed" and the latter two words are missing from those of Jokestress. This has (quite self-evidently) provided WP:WIKILAWYER wiggling room, and that just needs to be shut down and prevented from happening again the next time someone with a gender-issues axe to grind gets disruptive.

Beyond this, I'll just repeat what I said at Jokestress's user-talk page and the ANI thread: The Detransition edit [50] was a T-ban breach twice over, in being about both transgender and LGB politicized issues, and it severably fell under the WP:AC/DS that pertain to such topics (merged with the GamerGate sanctions).

For an editor T-banned from human sexuality to return to the no. 1 most conflict-generating human sexuality topic on Wikipedia (transgender matters), and head straight for potentially the most controversial subtopic within it (detransitioning), and then draw a comparison (in WP:NOT#FORUM- and WP:SOAPBOX-crossing ways, as a drive-by non sequitur seemingly aimed at controversy not at article improvement) using one of the most controversial subtopics of the LGB subject-space (self-declaration of being formerly homo- or bi-sexual), and to do so in an extra-provocative way by citing a brand new paper (primary source, with no impact and with no review outside the journal's own committee yet, if there really even is one) from predatory-journal outfit Science Publishing Group (a publisher whose entire website is on our URL blacklist), suggesting that detransition and ex-gay are far-right, Bible-thumper "discourses" about the "ungodly") – all supposedly without understanding it's a topic-ban breach or disruptive within an AC/DS subject?

Well, it just beggars disbelief, and was amazingly non-productive. If this had been reported to the correct venue (WP:AE instead of WP:ANI), I think a block would have been issued on the spot. And the sheer hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of a gender-identity tolerance activist using WP as a platform to simultaneously attack two self-identity decisions she doesn't like is just stunning, another example of political correctness turned ass-over-elbows. This hasn't been taking a long break to reflect on mistakes made and how to better integrate into a collaborative editing environment. It's just been stewing and biding one's time for years in hopes that editorial attrition, memory lapses, and forgivingness would enable a resumption of the same WP:GREATWRONGS antics.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

PS: If it's really true that "[a] few editors with very rigid medicalized views on sex and gender minorities maintain ownership of this subject area, causing our coverage to lag behind the published literature", WP just does not require Jokestress in particular to try to deal with it. We have many thousands of editors, and we have NPOV and NOR noticeboards for a reason. And they seem to better understand the difference between just "published" versus "reliable and secondary".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

PPS: I hadn't noticed this until now, but Jokestress continued editing at Talk:Detransition for about two days after the T-ban breach was pointed out, and in a similar politicizing vein: [51], [52], [53]. The gists of these and this edit to the article itself (inserting that predatory-journal, primary-source citation) indicate that Jokestress seems to believe the article is "biased" if it doesn't recast the entire subject in terms of activists' claims about transphobes using cases of detransitioning, and the term itself, as socio-political weapons against transgender rights (which to anyone else probably sounds like maybe a subsection at most). Regardless how one feels about such matters, it's absolutely a string of Jokestress T-ban violations, and clearly an advocacy not neutrality stance. There are probably things we can use from Jokestress's preferred sources, if any of them are non-primary and from reputable publishers, but we don't need Jokestress to find them or tell us how to use them. But that's beside the point, anyway: if a T-ban couldn't apply to some particular edit just because it was decided after the fact that it wasn't entirely and certainly non-constructive, then we wouldn't have T-bans since they'd be utterly unworkable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress: In response to your response: The gist of WP:CIR is that even if you're dead right about some fact in a content dispute (which is quite indeterminate at best in this case), being an intolerable pain in the backside to everyone around you in trying to force WP:THERIGHTVERSION (especially when you have an off-site fiduciary/professional and/or political interest in changing the wording) makes you essentially incompatible with how Wikipedia operates. If your science is so good, you should probably be writing for a different kind of publication, especially since this one is not about WP:WINNING, which is what your ARCA request focuses on. If WP were really lagging behind actual scientific consensus, on a subject covered at least in part by WP:MEDRS, it is not plausible this would not have been noticed except by you. Ergo, the reasonable conclusion is that this consensus has not shifted as far as you believe or would like. This is probably why you are citing primary-source material published this month (actually with a cover date of next month!) in a minor journal from a notoriously unreliable publisher. That's not science, it's politicking in a science costume. Halloween was more than a week ago (early Ministry notwithstanding).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress: Re "I am unable to edit anything in my area of expertise without being accused of this or that" – A very common experience, and why so many of us avoid spending our hobby time here getting deep into topics that relate directly to our professional lives, or which cross our socio-personal doctrine lines. Since for you this topic is both, it's a doubly poor idea to mix your advocacy business with what should be the pleasure of a pastime. Others typically are not as blind to our biases as we are, and insistence on pursuing one here robs others of their pleasure in participating. When one thinks of oneself as something like a personal reliable source who is here to set things straight, one is making a mistake.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare: I think your point about notice is valid, but Jokestress should now, obviously, be considered to have been notified. The solution to further WP:SANCTIONGAMING or honest uncertainty/inclarity is to have clerks deliver a notice to people affected by such sanctions that the sanctions regime was merged under GamerGate, and does include gender identity (as ArbCom has clarified numerous times already). Then this should just not come up again. Otherwise, people are apt to re-re-re-litigate this stuff. This is part of why my opening comment suggesting actually clarifying Jokestress's T-ban wording to also include "broadly construed", so that the sanctions (each time something like this comes up) become more and more consistent in wording and scope.

That said, I have to take issue with the idea that we (the community) or you (ArbCom) can evaluate an editor's ability to edit a topic in which they've been long-term disruptive (human sexuality and gender, in this case) by watching how that editor behaves in other topic areas, especially for only six months. We already know for a fact that this editor can bide time for years only to return with the intent to re-engage in the same battleground behavior, is showing signs of "I am the one true topical savior" WP:GREATWRONGS self-importance (the opposite of any sign of growth toward collaborative and neutral editing), and is even exhibiting such a WP:CIR problem that she's asked ArbCom to lift the T-ban specfically so that she can resume that battle. I question the wisdom of offering topical-return hope to this editor, especially given the history of "biding". It seems likely that Jokestress would ride out that six months gnoming and editing trivial, non-controversial topics just to "prove" ability to get along, and then rush right back into the fray as soon as permitted. WP:AGF has to be moderated by the practicality of the WP:DUCK/WP:SPADE and "our policies are not a suicide pact" principles we've derived from WP:Common sense. "I ... believe that it is possible for people who were unable to edit productively in a topic area to become able to" is effectively irrelevant when the editor in question has already demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that it will not happen. Re, "I ... would not support making any topic ban unappealable": No one suggested that, but we have indefinite remedies for a reason, and appealing them every 6 months or so is discouraged, also for good reasons.

PS: I've not looked into DMSBel, but the Barbara (WVS)/Bfpage restriction included "sexuality, broadly construed", which definitely does include gender, per ArbCom's own clarifications in Fæ's and other cases. "Didn't specifically mention gender" and "doesn't cover gender" are nowhere near synonymous, especially after "human sexuality" has already been clarified multiple times to be inclusive of gender identify, and most especially not in a case like this one, in which the "human sexuality" disruption by the editor has involved gender identity the entire time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Update: I've now looked into DMSBel. The restriction (dating to 2011, before widespread gender-related disruption, so of questionable relevance to begin with) was "the topic of human sexuality, interpreted broadly", which makes no exception for gender-related topics, and was not intended to. The admin informing DMSBel of this clearly noted: "The ban specifically says that it is to be interpreted broadly; pushing the limit on related topics is not recommended." DMSBel ignored this, and became disruptive in obviously related topics, including abortion, and was subject to further and further restrictions until being banned. So, it's a case study in why gender (and abortion, and so on) are necessarily included in "human sexuality", with very few editors having any doubt about that being obvious. Otherwise, the disruption will just shift over a little, skirting the edge of the ban with a bunch of wikilawyering until that gets shut down again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Last response, unless an Arb asks something, or I get a ping to clarify, or whatever. Jokestress's link to that well-written conference presentation gets right to the heart of the matter, really. Here's perhaps the key passage: "[H]oldouts in religion, law, medicine, and media gladly give platforms and support to anti-transgender views, often while denying us the chance to respond. They misrepresent and vilify us. ... They say our activism has gone 'too far.' But I say we haven’t gone far enough." This is certainly true, as a matter of societal observation and action-planning, but is just waaay off-base when applied to Wikipedia, which is overwhelmingly trans-friendly in both its content and editorial culture. Trans activists get topic-banned from gender and sexuality more frequently than average precisely because they bring "our activism hasn't gone far enough" to Wikipedia and become disruptive. The same thing happens in every "hot" topic area: one side, the one with a great wrong to right out there in the world, advances a PoV on-site at every opportunity until the community's had enough of it. I really do sympathize and empathize with the underlying impetus, as a former professional civil-liberties activist, but you don't find me dwelling on privacy and free speech topics here (or on particular legislators and other politicians, or organizations and agencies with terrible or excellent civ-lib track records, etc.), because I know I would advance a strong viewpoint in them, not a balanced one. I'm even on Jokestress's side off-site, on her central topic. As a VNEA pool league team captain with a transwoman player, I wrote to VNEA's board and administration, twice, to try to get a statement that my player would be permitted to compete in the women's singles championship matches in Vegas, and the organization refused to respond. As far as I know, to this very day (years later), it's simply going to be a matter of showing up and trying to register and hoping other, especially cis, women players don't lodge a series of protests against you. It's not fair, and it needs to change. But it has jack to do with how to edit Wikipedia, including about VNEA and about women in pool. WP:RS, not our own viewpoints and experiences, determine what and how to write about subjects here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Genericusername57

On User:Jokestress' User page she self-identifies as the activist Andrea James. Ms. James was a vocal critic of a 2018 Atlantic cover article on childhood gender dysphoria which featured several desisters and detransitioners. She said of the issue's editors: this July Atlantic cover story debacle will be a more historically significant journalistic event than nearly anything else in their careers. Everyone involved is going to be held accountable, even if it takes a decade or more.[54] In a blog post response to the article, she wrote:

The "ex-trans" movement, similar to the discredited "ex-gay" movement, can always count on axe-grinding coverage that vastly over-represents their numbers and POV. [...] The "ex-trans" movement is an anomaly, a rounding error, a tragedy to be sure, but ultimately a fringe movement embraced and amplified by bigots. [55]

One of Ms. James' recent ventures was a kickstarter for a data visualisation project she claims will identify transphobia in the media; it received US$23,302 in backing. She explicitly identified the detransition-related Atlantic article as her motivation https ://www.kickstarter .com/projects/andreajames/the-transphobia-project/faqs#project_faq_289721 and used it in fundraising appeals[56]. (Alice Dreger, who has alleged harassment and threats from Ms. James, described the kickstarter as a page to crowdfund her work harassing me and others[57]; the author of the Atlantic piece, Jesse Singal, called it such a massive grift[58]) It appears to me that Ms. James has a personal, possibly monetary, conflict of interest with the topic detransition, and that her article edit adding ex-gay movement and an "'Ex-Trans' Activists Exposed" ref prominently to the lead[59], as well as talk page edits labelling the article biased[60][61], are inappropriate advocacy importing an off-wiki conflict. gnu57 13:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Aircorn

While this is open and despite being informed that she is violating her topic ban she is still contributing to the talk page at Talk:Detransition.[62] AIRcorn (talk) 17:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

And now at Nikki Araguz.[63][64] It doesn't matter if they are good edits or not, being topic banned from a topic means you can't edit that topic. This is especially bad since you were clearly warned by Floquenbeam above[65] and acknowledged it at their talk page.[66] AIRcorn (talk) 21:34, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by WanderingWanda

1. Jokestress's tenure was before my time and I have no strong opinion about her topic ban. I do know that if I was in her position I would've gone about things a bit differently: I wouldn't have broken the ban before asking for it to be lifted, for example, and wouldn't have gone after other editors when making the request.

2. I am taken aback by some of the quotes by Jokestress about child sexual abuse above, and this isn't just an academic but a personal issue for me. I was also, however, concerned by some of Flyer22's statements: I have helped get a lot of pedophile and child sexual abuse POV-pushers indefinitely blocked...Jokestress was savvy enough to avoid to getting indefinitely blocked for her behavior in these areas...This editor is very much a threat to the community...I especially don't see how anyone (except for pedophiles, child sexual abusers, and related POV-pushers) can be comfortable letting this person edit pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics. I understand this is a difficult topic to talk about, but these statements, to me, go beyond just commenting on content, and instead publicly brand editors with a scarlet letter. And they don't just brand Jokestress herself, but any editor who would support lifting her topic ban and giving her a second chance. With that said, I've been told that it was inappropriate for me to attempt to redact Flyer's statements myself. I fully agree and apologize. WanderingWanda (talk) 09:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Literaturegeek

Jokestress has failed to show she can work sensibly in this topic area. I find it bizarre that an editor specialising in transgender issues could seriously think, even for a minute, that there should be a 100 percent ‘success’ or ‘satisfaction’ ratio of people with gender dysphoria or identity issues who transition, and then conclude and POV push on Wikipedia that the small number of said people changing their mind and detransitioning represents transphobia, etc. This rigid, inflexible and extreme black and white thinking, combined with concerns raised by editors above, suggests that this editor is not WP:COMPETENT to be editing in this area. People do change over time and while it may seem unlikely at this juncture who knows perhaps Jokestress can prove us wrong, in say a year from now, by editing sensibly in other topic areas before appealing this topic ban, at a later date.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:54, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Although I can see a small possibility in the future that Jokestress could find a pathway to return to editing transsexualism articles perhaps in a year from now, which is an area of her expertise, I do think she should be kept away indefinitely from the pedophilia range of articles for reasons highlighted above by other editors.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:43, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Sexology: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Sexology: Arbitrator views and discussion

• I remember this case and not fondly. Before considering any changes to Jokestress' topic ban, I would want to see evidence that she would be willing to work collaboratively in the area. However, that's not the impression I've got from this request, which is very much on the offensive. As such, I am minded to decline this request. Worm^TT(talk) 10:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

  Regarding the request to reaffirm the topic ban an add "broadly construed" or some notes about transgender issues, I'll hold off for now to see what other arbitrators think, but since I believe the scope of Jokestress' topic ban was wider than the area that discretionary sanctions were authorised for, and discretionary sanctions were specifically authorised for "paraphilia and transgender issue", I don't see myself objecting. Worm^TT(talk) 10:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

• Likewise, I don't see any evidence that there's a yen to collaborate with other editors here. If there is, and I missed it, we need some diffs to show it. As far as widening the topic ban, I need to hear what other arbs think before I weigh in. Katie^talk 15:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• Decline to lift the topic ban. @Jokestress: Your original comment reads as an open request to return to the battleground editing that led to the ban in the first place, and whilst I could extend the benefit of the doubt for initially poorly chosen words, you seem to be doubling down on it in subsequent replies. I'm sure you have a lot to contribute, but I don't believe that you're the only editor capable of maintaining NPOV in our coverage of human sexuality. If you want a route back to editing this topic, it's having more faith in your fellow editors and demonstrating a willingness to work with them rather than against.

Reading the original case, it seems clear that trans issues were a significant locus of the dispute, so it's reasonable to conclude that they were intended to be included in the topic ban. I'd therefore support clarifying the ban to something like ...from the topic of human sexuality and gender. I'm not sure how that works with the "including biographies" provision, though. Everyone has a sexuality and a gender, so was the idea to t-ban Jokestress from all biographies? Or just those of people notable for something related to sexuality/gender? If the latter, we should clarify whether the subject simply being trans prevents Jokestress from editing their biography (I'd say it shouldn't). – Joe (talk) 07:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jokestress: To answer your question, I think the usual way to show an ability to work collaboratively is to do so in another topic area. For example, you said you were active in race and intelligence, which is an area always in need of unbiased but moderating voices. As it is, since you haven't edited much since the case, we have little to go on other than your comments here, which as we've said contain a number of red flags regarding your attitude towards other editors. Personally, if you came back in six months after some uncontroversial and collaborative editing elsewhere, I'd be happy to try lifting this topic ban. – Joe (talk) 08:48, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

• Decline to remove or reduce the TBAN. It's clear that Jokestress isn't willing to work with other editors rather than against them. I'd support Joe's proposed clarification to the wording. With regards to biographies, I think the TBAN covers the entire biography of anyone whose primary claim to notability concerns their work in the area of sexuality and gender, and/or the portions of a BLP article that deal with a subject's gender and sexuality. So she could update the filmography of an actor who happens to be transgender, but not any content that concerns their gender. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Well... that escalated quickly. I had been following this request awaiting further input from the community. There's a very clear consensus the community does not want this, therefore, decline and I support Joe's proposed clarification. Mkdw ^talk 06:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Decline the appeal. I am not satisfied with the quality of editing in Jokestress' editing; interpersonal conduct standards are also poor. It is perhaps telling that Jokestress is, at the time of writing this, blocked for a short time. On the amendment request relating to scope of case, Jokestress is currently banned from editing content relating to human sexuality. The committee has repeatedly ruled^{1 2} that transgender issues are within that scope. With the scope not in doubt, we could only clarify the nature and meaning of a Wikipedia:Topic ban. We should not need to do that every time an editor is topic banned. I endorse Joe Roe, the subject simply being trans prevents Jokestress from editing their biography (I'd say it shouldn't), but the existing language says the same. The language never supported an attempt to ban Jokestress from every biography. AGK ■ 11:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• I think for now the best path forward is to clarify the topic ban via the proposed motion, and encourage Jokestress to demonstrate her ability to work collaboratively in other topic areas before returning to appeal the ban in no fewer than six months. The confusion about whether the topic ban applies to gender, and particularly Jokestress' choice to clearly violate the the existing topic ban by editing about human sexuality, has led to renewed conflict, so I would rather re-evaluate in a few months when I can review Jokestress' ability to edit productively and within the boundaries of an entirely clear restriction. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I don't agree with AGK about the past scope clarifications. Those specifically had to do with clarifying topic areas described as "transgender issues" and "gender-related disputes or controversies", not "human sexuality". Furthermore, although we replaced the Sexology discretionary sanction authorization in one of those ARCAs, we did not adjust Jokestress' topic ban scope. I don't think it's fair to say that Jokestress necessarily should have assumed her topic ban extended to gender as well as sexuality when no change was made to her specific topic ban remedy, the clarifications to the Manning and GamerGate cases postdated her restriction, and (to my knowledge) she was not notified of those changes. As for We should not need to do that every time an editor is topic banned, I think if we want editors who are topic banned from human sexuality to assume that they are also restricted from editing gender-related articles as a result of clarifications made after their bans were placed, we need to at least explicitly notify them, if not directly modify their sanctions. This last point may be a bit academic, though–a quick search through the editing restrictions archive confirms Jokestress is the only editor with an ArbCom topic ban from "human sexuality" (though there are two editors, DMSBel and Barbara (WVS)/Bfpage, with community-placed topic bans with scopes that include "human sexuality" but not gender). GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Crossroads: I hear what you're saying, but I a) believe that it is possible for people who were unable to edit productively in a topic area to become able to; and b) would not support making any topic ban unappealable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:06, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

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Sexology: Motion to amend Jokestress' topic ban

For this motion there are 8 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	5
1–2	4
3–4	3

Remedy 2.1 of Sexology ("Jokestress topic-banned from human sexuality") is amended to read:

Jokestress (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from the topic of human sexuality and gender, including biographies of people who are primarily notable for their work in these fields.

Enacted --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 06:24, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Support

1. Proposed. – Joe (talk) 08:37, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
2. As I said above, I believe that the topic ban on Jokestress should be considered wider than the DS area - so as a nitpick, I see this as a clarification, rather than an amendment. Either way though, I support this motion. Worm^TT(talk) 09:08, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
3. AGK ■ 12:50, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
4. Katie^talk 13:13, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
5. Have removed the provision about Talk:Andrea James given the discussion below. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
6. Mkdw ^talk 16:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
7. Per my comments above. GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Oppose

Recuse

Comments

1. Any thoughts about making a small exception permitting edit requests at Talk:Amanda James per Thryduulf's suggestion? I'd be on board with it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

   I would support that amendment Premeditated Chaos. Mkdw ^talk 00:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

   I'd support that too Worm^TT(talk) 08:21, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

   Added and excepting the submission of comments or edit requests to Talk:Amanda James. Could the clerks make sure that Joe Roe and KrakatoaKatie confirm they are okay with the change? AGK ■ 11:28, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

2. Wordsmithed a bit (it's Andrea James). The only objection I can think of is that Jokestress doesn't seem to have ever actually edited that page, and in that case perhaps she'd prefer not to have her real name included in an ArbCom remedy preemptively. @Jokestress: ? – Joe (talk) 12:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Based on Jokestress' response above I suggest we leave this out. @Premeditated Chaos, Mkdw, Worm That Turned, and AGK: ? – Joe (talk) 13:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, leave it out. Katie^talk 14:01, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

I'd rather there was something in to allow Jokestress to make edits to that talk page - however, I understand the objection of not wanting the official link to the bio in a remedy. I'm happy to leave it out, with the understanding that IAR / Common sense should mean Jokestress should absolutely not be sanctioned for making edits to that talk page. Worm^TT(talk) 14:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Facepalm Thanks for fixing that Joe. I'm fine with leaving it out since Jokestress doesn't want it in, but I agree with WTT about the IAR/common sense enforcement of the TBAN when it comes to good faith edit requests to the subject's own bio. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

In theory, the wording could be written in such a way so as to not explicitly name the article. e.g. "Comments or edit requests to any article talk page for which Jokestress is the primary topic are exempt". Mkdw ^talk 17:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Antisemitism in Poland (3) (December 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Volunteer Marek at 20:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland/Proposed decision#Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland/Proposed decision#Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned

• Volunteer Marek's IBAN regarding Icewhiz is rescinded

Statement by Volunteer Marek

Per the recent comments on my talk page by User:TonyBallioni [67], User:Piotrus [68] and User:Worm That Turned [69], I am submitting this request to amend the Proposed Remedy 3.3.2 [70] of this case to read:

Icewhiz (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from interacting with, or commenting on Volunteer Marek anywhere on Wikipedia.

This effectively converts the two sided IBAN into a one sided one.

As User:Worm That Turned points out, with Icewhiz indefinitely banned from Wikipedia the grounds for a two way IBAN are no longer valid and its original rationale is no longer applicable. Related to Tony Ballioni's point, there occasionally arise discussion/interactions on Wikipedia where I (Volunteer Marek) am brought up or discussed in some connection to Icewhiz by other editors (some of them apparently brand new accounts) and where, because of the IBAN, I am unable to comment, reply or defend myself (this happened for example on User:Jimbo Wales's talk page). This is particularly egregious since Icewhiz was indefinitely banned for extremely nasty off-wiki harassment of myself (as well as other editors).

Likewise, since the end of the case, and Icewhiz's indef ban, the topic area has seen a proliferation of new accounts and sock puppets (although not all of them are Icewhiz). Some of these appear to be engaged in baiting behavior, for example by restoring Icewhiz's old edits, which raises the possibility of an inadvertent IBAN violation. In other cases, these sock puppets/new accounts have made edits which target me personally but because of the IBAN I am unable to bring up the possibility that they are connected to Icewhiz on Wiki (some of the diffs from these accounts have been oversighted due to their extremely nasty nature).

I want to state that if this amendment carries, I have no intention of "seeking out" Icewhiz, or gravedancing, or "interacting" with his old edits or initiating discussions about him. For the most part I will be all too happy to continue to ignore his existence. However, as stated above, there is no longer a need for this restriction and occasionally (like with SPIs) a situation may arise where I should be able to comment.

Statement by Valereee

I'm not comfortable with this being so broad. VM ought to be able to comment in some cases, but simply allowing them to comment anywhere for any reason doesn't sound reasonable. Volunteer Marek says there occasionally arise discussion/interactions on Wikipedia where I (Volunteer Marek) am brought up or discussed in some connection to Icewhiz by other editors (some of them apparently brand new accounts) and where, because of the IBAN, I am unable to comment, reply or defend myself; why can't we amend to say that on such occasions, VM may comment. --valereee (talk) 18:26, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I get that, WTT, and I have little doubt IceWhiz is behaving badly. But to simply remove the limitation altogether...I dunno. I guess we can address it when it happens, but honestly there was plenty of bad behavior going around. --valereee (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• This is a reasonable request. Now that Icewhiz is banned a two-way IBAN serves no purpose in reducing disruption, and per the above comments, is unfairly restricting VM's ability to respond to harassment and disruption targeted at him. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
• valereee Simply put, the committee has received sufficient evidence that we put forward a motion removing Icewhiz from the encyclopedia. Since then, problematic behaviours have continued and have been targetted at VM. It's no longer about disputes escalating, it's about someone being able to protect themselves. Worm^TT(talk) 19:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Antisemitism in Poland: Motion

Remedy 2 of Antisemitism in Poland ("Icewhiz and Volunteer Marek interaction-banned") is renamed Icewhiz banned from interacting with Volunteer Marek and amended to read:

Icewhiz (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from interacting with or commenting on Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs) anywhere on Wikipedia (subject to the ordinary exceptions).

For this motion there are 8 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	5
1–2	4
3–4	3

Enacted - CodeLyoko^talk 01:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Support

1. Proposed. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
2. This kind of motion runs the risk of signalling to Icewhiz that we will not entertain an appeal in the future. The committee is not voting on that question. However, an interaction ban where one of the two parties is absent is obviously without purpose. And the current state of affairs risks being manifestly unjust to Volunteer Marek, for reasons that do not need detailing. Vacating the interaction ban would be useful and appropriate. AGK ■ 10:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
3. I'm hesitant about this. Firstly, we applied a 2 way interaction ban for a good reason - it was the right thing to do and it wasn't long ago. Secondly, I don't like 1 way interaction bans. However, as AGK points out, this state of affairs risks being manifestly unjust to Volunteer Marek. I may be hesitant, but this is the right decision. Worm^TT(talk) 10:33, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
4. Per AGK. Katie^talk 11:44, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
5. Per AGK. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
6. Not to be a broken record, but, per AGK. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:53, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
7. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
8. Mkdw ^talk 17:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Oppose

Recuse

Comments

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles 3 (December 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Zero0000 at 13:58, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 3 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. WP:ARBPIA3#500/30

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Zero0000 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• WP:ARBPIA3#500/30

• Remove ambiguity

Statement by Zero0000

The sentence "Deletion of new articles by editors who do not meet the criteria is permitted but not required." literally says that non-extended-confirmed editors may delete new articles. This was certainly not the intention. To remove this ambiguity I suggest the insertion of one word: "Deletion of new articles created by editors who do not meet the criteria is permitted but not required."

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: I also doubt there has been actual confusion. I see this only as a little bit of cleanup that should be carried out on the principle that rules should really say what everyone assumes them to say. Zero^talk 18:16, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by JJE

Well, has there been actual confusion because of this ambiguity? It doesn't sound likely. And if there was, should this be folded into the pending case on this topic area? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:21, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Palestine-Israel articles 3: Arbitrator views and discussion

• While it does not seem like the current wording has been problematic yet and it is technically impossible for non-admins to delete articles, I am fine with the suggestion of adding 'created' to clarify to what by is referring. Mkdw ^talk 22:26, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
• I too have no problem with this change. I'm aware. though, that we're about to open ARBPIA4 to review all remedies - as this hasn't been misinterpreted in the past, I think it's something that would be best covered there. Worm^TT(talk) 09:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

  Zero0000 would you mind raising this at WP:ARBPIA4 so that it doesn't get lost? IF so, I think we can close this and deal with all together. Worm^TT(talk) 18:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

• The change makes sense to me -- agreed that it's confusing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:22, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• Should be an uncontroversial clarification, I'm okay with it. – Joe (talk) 09:11, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
• Concur that this matter is best addressed in WP:ARBPIA4. AGK ■ 20:12, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: American politics 2 (December 2019)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by Atsme at 23:53, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

American politics 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Indef t-ban from Anti-fascism broadly construed
2. Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved admins
3. Wikipedia:Administrators#Accountability

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Atsme (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Awilley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Awilley

Information about amendment request

• Indef t-ban from Anti-fascism broadly construed

• Removal of the t-ban, and redaction from the log

• Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved admins

• Cessation of WP:HOUNDING under the guise of "rope"

• Wikipedia:Administrators#Accountability

• Admins should not be permitted to create their own DS, or micromanage a topic area by imposing unilateral actions against editors for violations of DS that are not specifically defined in ArbCom Remedies

Statement by Atsme

I believe Awilley is a good admin trying to accomplish good things but is going about it the wrong way. He has inadvertently misused the tools and created more disruption than he's resolved. His bias is sometimes obvious but not consistently so. He takes unilateral actions based on his customized DS which has lead to POV creep and specific DS for specific editors as he sees fit. He is micromanaging AP2 and controlling the narrative by lording over editors. His experimental undertakings and ominous presence have a chilling effect. The following diffs will demonstrate the depth of his involvement and why ArbCom needs to modify/amend AE, particularly with reference to the issues mentioned herein. Note: I pinged only the few admins mentioned in the diffs below, but do not consider them or any of the editors named to be involved parties.

The day after I sought Awilley's help, he exercised a unilateral action and imposed an indef t-ban based on his misinterpretation of WP:GASLIGHTING

• 7/21/2019 I sought Awilley's help to stop disruption at an article
• 7/21/2019 his response
• 7/21/2019 editor later apologized to me
• 7/21/2019 collaboration had begun
• 7/22/2019 - next day, Awilley imposed a t-ban, derailing my participation in consensus building
• 7/23/2019 - slightly modifiied the t-ban
• 7/25/2019 - confirms his misinterpretation
• User_talk:Awilley#DS - full TP discussion
• Tagged for deletion/redirect to quietly cover-up his mistake
• 7/26/2019 - redirect discussion
• My total July edits in the t-banned topic area: Talk:Antifa (United States) - 24 edits; Talk:Fascism - 9 edits; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willem van Spronsen - 4 edits;

Involved, enforces homemade DS in anticipation of disruption, not because of it

• 6/2/2019 - admin advice
• 7/13/2019- another admin describes it as a "personal crusade"
• 7/14/2019 - he questions criticism
• 10/3/2019 - editor advice about his involvement,
• 10/3/2019 - he admits to it
• 10/29/2019 - oblivious to the chilling effects of his threats
• 10/31/2019 - unaware of own involvement
• 10/31/2019 - another admin gives advice
• 11/15/2019 - unaware of hounding or disruption he creates
• 11/15/2019 - in denial, ...the sanctions I imposed were not meant as a supervote or to derail a community process.

Hounding, attempts to manipulate & control what others say and think

• 2/21/2019 - I respond to misrepresentations
• 2/22/2019 - hounding during 1st appeal - please note the section title On a personal note 16:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
• 2/25/2019 - ignores consensus & goes with rope to maintain control
• 2/27/2019 - another admin responds
• 3/1/2019 - labels constructive criticism Strawman
• 4/9/2019 - preconceived notions
• 11/15/2019 - manipulative - Anybody with one eye can see that I pressured Snoogans into making those commitments..."

Displays of favoritism wherein he allows normal processes to work without his interference

• 7/7/2019 - allows editors to work things out, a courtesy I was denied
• 7/11/ 2019 gives editor a chance to self-correct
• 7/23/2019 - simply redacts racial slur & helps involved editor with no warnings
• 8/1/2019 - acts on an afterthought he should have engaged in before t-ban *RfC supported my position but again, his interference derailed my participation in a community process
• 8/8/2019 - he's too busy to sanction, & tells editor to take a week off
• 10/31/2019 - removes offensive comment, adds a friendly warning
• 11/3/2019 - IP criticism over his friendly warnings and courtesy removals
• 11/15/2019 - negotiates a side deal, rescinds DS

• Response - Awilley's statement amplifies his inability to take responsibility for his mistakes or hounding disguised as WP:ROPE, and further demonstrates his POV creep, bias, and favoritism as evidenced by the diffs above and contained herein. He eludes discussion about the confusion and disruption caused by his unilateral actions & subsequent retractions for favored editors or when other admins question him. A few examples follow: he imposed NPC & TS DS based on an AE case; retracted TS; retracts both. A well-stated criticism over special DS followed by a little brew ha ha grave dance and a null edit “Let’s both sleep on this, deal?”; he mentions harm, creep and super-specific sanctions tailored to individual editors; he responds to criticism but rejects any notion that his micromanagement-style lording over the AP2 topic area is harmful. With regards to WP:GASLIGHTING, I repudiate his response as an obvious diversion of the truth per the diffs and discussion I've provided. I will also add that he has not said anything to others who have used the term, particularly when used fallaciously as in the 1st subsection title; or when used by others on his UTP, or in discussions wherein he participated. Quite frankly, it is creepy stalking by an admin, who is overly involved in a topic area, anticipating or perhaps even hoping an editor makes a mistake so he can impose his homemade DS. It has an undeniably chilling effect, and demands a closer look by ArbCom. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Vanamonde - thank you for your input. I am here requesting clarification and amendment as it relates to my case which has proven to be an excellent example of Awilley's overreach stemming from sole discretion and unilateral actions taken in the name of AE DS; thus, ARCA is the correct venue. Presenting it in parts or in any other form, and we'd have a carriage without the horse. Awilley's t-ban was an action of AE DS but it had an unforseen undertow - one that is not isolated to only my case as evidenced in the diffs above, as well as by his overreach in other cases such as this one wherein he inadvertently interfered with consensus building. His activities need ArbCom's scrutiny and clarification, which will benefit all of us, including Awilley himself. The community elected a committee to arbitrate tough cases that could not/should not be remedied by a single admin - yet, AE DS tossed the ball back into the admin court by authorizing unilateral actions which has afforded an excessive amount of leverage to an admin's sole discretion which leads to problems when there are POV issues, bias (perceived or otherwise), preconceived notions, and/or a shadowed history between an admin and an editor. The latter typically arises from over-involvement in a particular topic area (see diffs). No editor should ever be subjected to hounding by an admin who is stalking them in the shadows just waiting for them to make a mistake. I went to Awilley seeking help, as I have occasionally done with you, Vanamonde. The diffs I provided above speak to the result, and it had a very chilling effect on me. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• @KrakatoaKatie - please look at the following 2 diffs again: [71], [72] - it appears you missed them if you believe there was no attempt to cover up his misinterpretation of Gaslighting when he t-banned me. I was asking for his help and he turned around and accused me instead. One of the editors who was doing it at the article TP apologized to me and I included that diff as well. The log also confirms the attempted cover-up via redirect so that it would support his version, as does his TP. Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2019_August_11#Wikipedia:GASLIGHTING He stated clearly "This seems like a non-neutral and misleading redirect. Gaslighting has a specific meaning and the target page (examples of gaming/wikilawering) doesn't include anything about gaslighting or any other form of psychological abuse. An example of a similarly unhelpful redirect would be WP:KILL to WP:BLOCK. We don't want users running around complaining that an admin threatened to "kill" them; in a similar way we don't want users to complaing that gamers are "gaslighting" His TP discussion also clearly states what he thought Gaslighting meant and what he was accusing me of, and then in the Redirect discussion, Ivanvector explained it to him. His response was Doh! I should have seen that. I even went so far as to do a search for a more appropriate target, which wasn't very helpful since it brought up the current target and a bunch of AN/I-like pages. Please feel free to speedy close this with the if that's a thing around here. (I can do the retarget myself.) them." So, yes, he did initially try to cover it up and was unsuccessful. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• ’’’To the Arbs’’’ - I came here for clarity, and it appears you may have misunderstood the diffs I’ve provided. I went to Awilley for help and in turn, he accused me of wrongfully using WP:GASLIGHTING because he thought it meant Gaslighting and t-banned me for using it. Then, in an effort to make the term fit his definition and justify his t-ban, he attempted to deceitfully redirect the WP guideline to the article. That is not a proper action. One of the editors apologized to me for his behavior further substantiating that I used the guideline correctly, and described the disruption correctly. It was not I causing it. How can you say that what Awilley did was a proper action, GorillaWarfare, PremeditatedChaos and KrakatoaKatie?? The entire crux of what Awilley did was based on his misinterpretation of the term. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 09:53, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

re-do ping that didn’t send: Premeditated Chaos ^Atsme _Talk 📧 10:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

• GorillaWarfare - no, that is not what happened, and the diffs unequivocally support my position. Saying I was "backsliding into behavior that led to your previous AP topic ban" - is absolutely false. This is more of Awilley's made-up DS, hair trigger ill-conceived actions based on misinterpretations - the diffs support what I'm saying. He did it to me - misinterpreted my use of WP:GASLIGHTING, thinking it meant psychological manipulation and then tried to redirect it to article that describes it as psychological manipulation. With all due respect, that is not what you described. I provided, and further substantiated with his actual words above, exactly what happened. It is unambiguous. This is exactly why I combined the two issues - to demonstrate to ArbCom that admins should not take unilateral actions when they are that involved, or they are biased and have preconceived notions. TonyBallioni summarized it quite well in this diff - and it has happened to me. What Awilley believes may become disruption is NOT a reason to block or t-ban an editor. I have barely edited in the subject area that covers his t-ban- I may have a total of 30 edits there - certainly not enough to demonstrate any kind of backsliding pattern. What does concern me more and should concern every editor on this project, is the fact that ArbCom has given a green light to admins allowing them sole discretion to make-up rules as they go, act unilaterally while micromanaging a topic area, and t-banning/blocking any editor they so desire for whatever reason they choose. If that is acceptable to the community, then I have nothing more to say. I thank you for your time. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:52, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

• GorillaWarfare - JzG just cast some very harmful aspersions against me in violation of DECORUM - it was a blatant character assassination. He has made fallacious claims against me over the years - they are undeniably PAs and they should be redacted. His accusations with regards to laetrile & G. Edward Griffin are completely false and misleading. My last edit to that BLP was on March 13, 2015. Read it for yourselves. WP:AVDUCK is also available for everyone to read - it was my first attempt at writing an essay - I am simply a co-author among several - it is a good essay, one I was encouraged to write by SlimVirgin several years ago. As for GMOs - I may have made 3 edits in that topic area, broadly construed, and I think it was an insecticide article, and maybe I participated in an RfC - that is the extent of my involvement. GMOs are not my area of interest. JzG has been HOUNDING me and constantly casts the same aspersions over and over again. I have tried to ignore him over the years, but he keeps bringing it up. He needs a major time out. His attempt to sugarcoat his aspersions do not make the well any less poisoned. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:52, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
• GorillaWarfare - I will do my best to clarify in response to your question:
  • 7/23/2019 T-ban - "Despite your commitments to "LETITGO", when someone actually suggested that you "drop the stick" you accuse them of "gaslighting" you." July 20 2019 The diff clearly explains what was happening. An editor apologized to me for his behavior. We were about to start an RfC. Awilley's preconceived notions clouded his judgement - he did not AGF and had WP:ROPE foremost on his mind because he is far too involved in the topic area - so much so that he uses AP2 as a petri dish - read the diff. Read the wise concerns by DGG, TonyBallioni and other admins. Awilley targeted my use of gaslighting based on his misinterpretation rather than focusing on the bullying and the reason I went to him for help.
  • I approached Awilley on * July 24th regarding his definition of WP:GASLIGHTING because I knew then that he had it wrong.
    

Awilley said: Me just now: "Hey Google, define gaslighting."
My phone: "Gaslight: manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity."
I don't think "gaslighting" is an appropriate word to describe most garden variety disputes that pop up on Wikipedia's talk pages, if that's what you're trying to get at. ~Awilley (talk)
Atsme responds: No, actually I believe you should have referred to WP:GASLIGHTING instead - then you would have recognized what the others were doing to me. Atsme Talk 📧 10:29 am, 25 July 2019

1. July 26, 2019 The day after I explained WP:GASLIGHTING to Awilley, he opened a redirect for discussion and wikilinked to Gaslighting because that is what he saw as a better target page to justify his t-ban and belief that I had used such a radical term against good editors and caused disruption, when all along it was a WP guideline. He could have asked me or said something to me, but no - he was content with the definition he used because it justified his t-ban. How does his attempt at a quiet redirect not raise a brow?
2. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 August 11#Wikipedia:GASLIGHTING Awilley stated: "This seems like a non-neutral and misleading redirect. Gaslighting has a specific meaning and the target page (examples of gaming/wikilawering) doesn't include anything about gaslighting or any other form of psychological abuse." In other words, he was unaware of the guideline definition which is how I applied it as a veteran editor who is familiar with our PAGs. I had no problem finding it because I just automatically figured someone probably moved the anchor and did not update the redirect.

Ivanvector explained: Retarget to Wikipedia:Gaming the system#Gaming the consensus-building process (the section directly below the current target) which specifically mentions gaslighting as a separate bullet point. In fact it's already listed as a shortcut for that section, not the one it currently targets. I suspect someone just made a mistake. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 1:37 pm, 26 July 2019, Friday (3 months, 30 days ago) (UTC−5)
Awilley replies: "Doh! I should have seen that. I even went so far as to do a search for a more appropriate target, which wasn't very helpful since it brought up the current target and a bunch of AN/I-like pages. Please feel free to speedy close this with the if that's a thing around here. (I can do the retarget myself.)" ~Awilley (talk) 2:00 pm, 26 July 2019, Friday (3 months, 30 days ago) (UTC−5)

• He admits "I even went so far as to do a search for a more appropriate target,..." - more appropriate meaning appropriate to his definition of psychological manipulation which would justify his t-ban. His motives were quite clear - he did not believe me - he had preconceived notions - he was in a ROPE mindset. It happens - he did it - my case is exemplary in demonstrating the bigger issue I brought here - unilateral actions and sole discretion in AE DS - and the problems with micromanagement and customizing DS to a particular editor. Yes, it is all related but I would rather put my t-ban on hold, and focus on the bigger issue which is highly problematic. Thank you to the arbitrators, I apologize for lacking clarity but this has been a very stressful endeavor for me. I hope you all will forgive my faults and human errors. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:30, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, if Awilley’s misunderstanding of gaslighting is not the reason in your view, then what is exactly? Slippage into past behavior is technically not a reason. What policy did I violate? What behavior was disruptive to the point of t-ban worthy? Please be specific because the diffs provided do not demonstrate disruption or behavior worthy of a t-ban when what I was saying led to an apology, an RfC and the proper outcome in an AfD wherein I was being bludgeoned. I am even more confused now than when I started and would very much appreciate your naming a t-ban worthy violation. Does an admin saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT apply as a valid reason to call an editor’s consensus building discussion disruptive behavior? I really need to know the policy I violated so I don’t repeat the behavior. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:57, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• GorillaWarfare there is a lengthy discussion about similar matters I brought here for clarification/amendment taking place at ANI now. This case is going nowhere because, in retrospect, it was malformed and probably should have been rejected from the start by a clerk or someone who could offer me a bit of help in doing it properly. I never intended for the appeal to be separate from the other - I apologize for the confusion but the two go hand in hand as evidenced by the ANI discussion. Will you close this case as malformed as appeal denied or whatever else you need to do? in light of the ANI case?^{11:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC) Atsme} _Talk 📧 09:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• JzG could not have provided a better reason for ArbCom to carefully consider why it is highly problematic to allow admins - especially involved admins with strong biases as JzG just demonstrated - to use sole discretion when taking unilateral actions based on their personal interpretations of DS. To distort the truth, take an editor’s comments out of context, and espouse misinformation repeatedly for nearly 5 years using WP’s own consensus building process in a diff to denigrate and patronize a female editor is behavior unbecoming an admin, and it deserves ArbCom’s utmost scrutiny. The misogyny in his comments could not be more obvious. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:37, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Awilley

• Just a note to say that I have seen this and that I won't be able to make a full response tonight. If this is about getting the topic ban rescinded I am ready to do that at any time if/when Atsme makes an appeal. She asked me a couple of times via email to rescind the ban, but I informed her that I don't do appeals by email. After that she approached me on my talk page asking how to appeal and I responded with my criteria. The exchange is here. The only other on-wiki discussion I can remember that remotely resembled an appeal was on my talk page here. I haven't had times to review the diffs above but if there are things people find concerning please let me know so I can respond specifically to the concerns. ~Awilley (talk) 02:19, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• I've had some more time to review this, and I'm still a bit unclear on what proportion of this is a request to lift the Antifa topic ban I placed on Atsme vs. a request for arbitrator intervention against myself vs. a request to modify the nature of discretionary sanctions. Looking at the diffs above I feel a few points might need some clarification:

1. Above it is stated that I imposed the topic ban based on my misinterpretation of WP:GASLIGHTING. In fact the use of the word "gaslighting" was only part of the rationale, and the link to WP:GASLIGHTING seems retroactive. Usually when someone is referencing a WP policy or guideline that is indicated via formatting (the inclusion of a link, a "WP:" on the front of the word, or ALLCAPS). The first time I saw Atsme use such formatting was on July 25 on my talk page, 3 days after the topic ban had been placed. Prior to that the only special formatting for the word "gaslighting" had been 🔥to put it between flame emojis🔥
2. Above it is stated that I tried to redirect/delete the WP:GASLIGHTING redirect to "quietly cover up" something. What actually happened was that the link was pointing to the wrong target. When it was placed on my talk page I clicked on it to see what it said, and what I found didn't even mention gaslighting. I searched around to see if there was a better target...direct mention in an essay or policy or something, and when I couldn't find anything I put it up for discussion. I think my intentions should be pretty obvious to anybody who reads the two comments I made at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2019_August_11#Wikipedia:GASLIGHTING. I fixed the redirect here.
3. Re: involvement, as far as I can recall my interactions with Atsme and other editors in the topic area have been in an administrative role and the occasional edit or wording suggestion is aimed at helping editors in disagreement find common ground. Many disputes on Wikipedia can be resolved with creative compromise wordings that satisfy the objections of both sides. I've put a lot of effort into trying to get people out of the all-or-nothing mindset that seems to frequently dominate American Politics discussions. A recent example of that is here. I feel that is in line with the second paragraph of WP:INVOLVED which states that "an administrator whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area. Warnings, calm and reasonable discussion and explanation of those warnings, advice about community norms, and suggestions on possible wordings and approaches do not make an administrator 'involved'."

• On the subject of custom sanctions (I wish we could depreciate the "special" descriptor) I believe I have been very cautious with the application and receptive to feedback. Of the 7 sanctions listed on my subpage, 2 have never been applied, and 2 have been retired. In the 1.5 years since I created the sanctions I have applied them to only 7 editors, and currently sanctions are only active on 2 editors. The sanctions are designed to give users a chance to correct mistakes, so actual enforcement is rarely necessary.
  Here's a quick table summary of which sanctions have been applied, and how many times:

Summary table of custom sanctions

Sanction Number of times applied Number of times remedy needed to be enforced No Personal Comments (On Artcle Talk pages, don't distract from content by attacking the contribuotrs) 5 0 Thicker Skin (On Article Talk pages, don't accuse others of making personal comments directed at yourself) 2 0 Edit Summaries (Say what you're doing, and don't mislead) 0 - Courtesy in Reporting (No "gotcha" reports to administrative noticeboards...politely give the offender a chance to fix the problem first) 2 0 Consensus Required (Just like the page restriction, except it only applies to 1 editor. If your edit is reverted, don't restore it without consensus on talk.) 0 - Anti-Filibuster (Deprecated) (Don't bludgeon RfCs) 3 0.5 (1-week topic ban was informal, un-logged) Auto-Boomerang (Deprecated) 1 0

I would also note that I am hardly the first to apply custom sanctions to editors. It happens both from consensus processes (at AN/I and Arbcom), and with individual admins acting unilaterally. I think I've just been more public about it, writing the sanctions down and re-using them.

Here are some examples of custom sanctions that other admins have placed on individual editors

Examples of custom sanctions from other admins

"[editor] is prohibited for six months from adding any article-level maintenance tags to any Trump-related articles" "[editor] is indefinitely prohibited from commenting on AE requests to which they are not a party." "[editor] is indefinitely prohibited from discussing the potential motivations of Wikipedia editors, as well as the actions of corporations or persons..." "[editor] prohibited from commenting on Wikipedia with regards to any accounts owned or alleged to be owned by Wikipedia editors on non-Wikimedia websites...: "[editor] is prohibited from describing any edit as "vandalism" (whether in edit summaries, on talk pages, or anywhere else) unless it meets the definition at WP:VAND" "[editor] prohibited from violations of WP:AGF; advised to avoid commenting on contributor." "[editor] prohibited from reverting without discussing" "[editor]...prohibited for four months from making more than one revert per week" "[editor] is prohibited from commencing or participating in dispute resolution or enforcement processes (including arbitration enforcement) relating to user conduct within the area of conflict (as defined by WP:DIGWUREN#Discretionary sanctions) for a period of two months, save for processes concerning his or her own conduct. To avoid doubt, "commencing or participating in" includes doing so by proxy. "[editor] prohibited from using images that advocate against any party involved in the Israeli-Arab conflict on their user page." There are of course more...these examples are just the ones that happened to contain the word "prohibited" (found these in the log with Ctrl+F) Another well-known example is: "[editor] agrees to a restriction prohibiting him from shouting at, swearing at, insulting and/or belittling other editors...If [editor] finds himself tempted to engage in prohibited conduct, he is to disengage and either let the matter drop or refer it to another editor to resolve..."

I'm happy to discuss this in depth elsewhere, but since it was being discussed here I figured I'd respond here. ~Awilley (talk) 03:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

• Again on the subject of custom sanctions, I'm happy to discuss it here or elsewhere. I've solicited input since the beginning, and it's probably time to have a formal discussion. From what I understand of DGG's position, questions that need to be addressed are (in order):
  • Should ArbCom continue to delegate its power to Admins in the form of Discretionary Sanctions?
    • Should individual admins continue to have the power to impose unilateral discretionary action? (I think this is where DGG says "No".)
    • Should the admins at AE have the power to impose custom sanctions (more than just the standard toolset of blocks, topic bans, revert restrictions)? (Not sure where DGG stands on this.)
      • Should individual admins have the power to impose custom sanctions? (Strong "No" from DGG, I think)
        • Do the custom sanctions listed at User:Awilley/Discretionary sanctions push the envelope too far? In particular, do the specific enforcement procedures (meant to give people a chance to resolve disputes at the lowest level without admin intervention) and fixed remedies (meant to reduce drama from disproportionate punishment) make the sanctions too complicated to be useful?
      • Would it help to have a page of sanctions that can be imposed unilaterally by individual admins?
        • If so, would it be helpful to expand that list of sanctions to use some of the custom sanctions that have been used by the community over the years? (For example, sanctions against speculating on talk pages about the motivations of other editors, or commenting in AE requests to which you aren't a party, or reverting more than once without discussion, or making "gotcha" requests to noticeboards without first giving editors a chance to self-revert)

Also, would it be better to discuss this in an amendment request, or in a formal case with evidence pages and workshops? ~Awilley (talk) 05:17, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• A question: @GorillaWarfare: If this is closed as "declined", could you clarify if I would be allowed at a later date to possibly remove the topic ban myself, unilaterally? I would like for that to be an option, since appeals here and at AE can be time consuming and messy, but I don't want to go anywhere near unilaterally overriding Arbcom. ~Awilley (talk) 03:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Pudeo

I have previously criticized Awilley's special discretionary sanctions as complex and arbitrary. In response, Awilley deprecated the anti-filibuster sanction as too complex. Anti-filibuster sanction was this: In talk page discussions you are limited to 3 initial posts, then 1 post per 24-hrs. In threads specifically for voting you are limted to 1 post. Imagine having to count that for highly active editors. You'd have to WP:HOUND pretty hard to see it enforced.

Well, good that is was deprecated. But the principle of giving this much discretion needs to be evaluated. Being this customizable and complex means it's hard to enforce them in an even way. It is also interesting to see that the special sanction for Snooganssnoogans was negotiated away. Special discretion is like entering the King's court and seeing if he, on this occasion, wants to give you sanctions 1, 2, 3 and 4 or if you can strike a side-deal. Needless to say, the situation would be unworkable if all admins had their own set of special sanctions. --Pudeo (talk) 15:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by DGG

Sometimes there is a need to make sanctions a little flexible. But to avoid confusion, this needs to be kept very close to the standard parameters. I understand Awilley's desire to find sanctions that might possibly be more effective than the standard. But this is not really the sort of thing that is fair to the subjects of these sanctions --or even those threatened by such sanctions-- when done by individual experimentation. Very reasonably the enactment of DS by Arb Com the last few years has been in the direction of greater standardization, instead of the earlier experimentation case by case. Even as a committee we learned not to try to be too inventive. Dispute resolution needs a stable environment. DGG ( talk ) 19:35, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I am glad to see that the remaining members of the current arbitration committee considers the sort of customized sanctions to beperhaps an inappropriate delegation of their powers, they should reconsider. The committee can appropriately use its collectve judgememnt and the authority given by the elections to devise any sanctions it considers reasonable. Delegating the same function to whatever one of the several hundred individual admins may choose to exercise their imagination is another matter entirely. DGG ( talk ) 02:35, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

The question that has not yet been adequately addressed is whether it is appropriate for any one single admin to be the "admin trying to get some order in the topic area" (KK). Arb com would never let one individual arb make the decisions in a case: consider the concern when the number of active admin this year fell so low as to possibly be unrepresentative. Nor would the community ever have approved an arb policy where we had a single arb, or a single arb for any one question. Nor would any arb I have ever encountered suggest that they personally were qualified to do this--the only person to ever do so was Jimbo, and when he last tried to do just that a number of years ago, the community reaction was such that he agreed to not take such actions at enWP ever again.

all the more so would the arbs never appoint a single admin to enforce decisions. They and we should see this more generally--it should be made clear that no one admin should repeatedly engage in arb enforcement on the same individual or take a disproportionate share for any large area. Thefundamental reason is not competence, but that even if one is perfectly free from all bias, some degree of bias will unconsciously develop as one carries out enforcement. I don't believe there is anyone here or anywhere less that is totally free from this tendency.

The system here survives because people here more or less trust it, and almost all admins step back when they suspect even the beginning of disproportionate interest, and most certainly when another WPedian suggests the possibility. Even if that WPedian is acting in unnecessary over-sensitive self protection, there are hundreds of other admins. And even if that WPedian is acting to delay or avoid justified action, there are hundreds of other admins to take over. DGG ( talk ) 05:45, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

Can be discussed in a separate request if needed. My very best wishes (talk) 01:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I think Arbcom should establish a limited set of standard discretionary sanctions to be used by admins. Simply saying "any reasonable measure" here is not good enough. I am not saying the sanctions by Awilley were bad, outside discretion or unreasonable. To the contrary, I think you need to look at them and decide if something Awilley suggested can be used as a basis for the new standard DS, in addition to 1RR, page protection, etc. You might also look at the "consensus required" restriction used in AP area. However, I think that one should never be used, based on the amount of confusion and infighting it caused. My very best wishes (talk) 20:27, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Bishonen

There are at least two uncomfortable "amendment request" bedfellows here. Both DGG and Pudeo, perhaps also MVBW, seem to be getting Awilley's bog standard topic ban of Atsme from Anti-fascism broadly construed mixed up with Awilley's "special discretionary sanctions". The topic ban Atsme is appealing here has nothing to do with those special sanctions, but was simply placed per the AP2 discretionary sanctions. DGG has previously criticized Awilley's special sanctions roundly, compare User talk:Awilley/Discretionary sanctions, passim but especially recently, and so has Pudeo (but I'm not going to dig that up). They are perhaps so interested in the special sanctions that they can't resist posting about them here. Indeed, Atsme also alludes to Awilley's special sanctions: "Admins should not be permitted to create their own DS, or micromanage a topic area by imposing unilateral actions against editors for violations of DS that are not specifically defined in ArbCom Remedies". And yet this request is framed as an amendment to (= a lifting of) Awilley's indef T-ban from Anti-fascism broadly construed. If getting that T-ban lifted is Atsme's goal here, then Awilley's special sanctions are neither here nor there, for the T-ban is not based on them, and people should stop confusing the arbitrators by bringing them up. If, on the other hand, Atsme primarily wants to complain to ArbCom about Awilley's special sanctions, that is a much bigger subject, which should not be mixed with an irrelevant T-ban request. She may wish to consider posting another, separate, ARCA request about the special sanctions.

For my part, I find Awilley's detailed rationale for the topic ban persuasive. It is largely based on Atsme's own promises and undertakings when she successfully appealed a previous, broader, topic ban from the entirety of the AP2 area. People believed those undertakings, and therefore accepted her appeal.

(Parenthetical note: Atsme has also listed Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved admins and Wikipedia:Administrators#Accountability under "Clauses to which an amendment is requested", but I'm going to assume that was accidental, and due to the constraints of the ARCA template. Atsme surely knows that it's not for ArbCom to amend Wikipedia's policies, and merely meant to say those policies support her request.) Bishonen | talk 14:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC).

Statement by Vanamonde (AP2)

I'd like to make a couple of indirectly related points here. First, Atsme, an ARCA where you are appealing your own topic ban isn't the place to demand an examination of Awilley's actions. Second, with respect to specific sanctions; I can understand the desire to make our sanctions regimes as simple as possible. However, it is worth noting that a specific sanction is often created because the only reasonable alternative would be a much broader sanction. I have on numerous occasions proposed specific sanctions because they were the only workable way to allow an editor to continue to be productive, and because the alternative responses were draconian. As such, if we move away from user-specific sanctions, I think we will inevitably see more frequent and more severe "standard" sanctions being applied; so y'all might want to think about what you're really asking for. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

I won't say much, based on the assumption that the Arbs will take 5 minutes to look at Awilley's AE sanction notice and the diffs he included in it, look at Atsme's promises made in her February appeal, and quickly realize this was a measured, restrained use of DS. Reimposing the original full AP topic ban would have been justifiable, but no good deed goes unpunished I guess.

If the committee wants to consider Awilley's specialized DS, that should probably be a separate clarification request; it has nothing to do with Atsme's appeal, because this is a bog-standard topic ban. But per Vanamonde, preventing such specialized DS's will likely just lead to more admins using a full AP topic ban instead. Which - as in this case - might not be a bad thing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell

This topic ban appeal seems to consist almost entirely of poorly substantiated or completely unfounded attacks against the admin who imposed the sanction. Atsme goes so far as to accuse Awilley of "creepy stalking", which is an appalling—and, again, completely unfounded—personal attack. And she's presumably on her best behavior in this venue. I don't see any compelling rationale put forward to lift the topic ban, and this appeal reinforces more general concerns about Atsme's suitability as an editor in the American-politics topic area.

As for Awilley's custom discretionary sanctions, while I sometimes disagree with his application, he deserves a few dozen barnstars—and ArbCom's unflinching support and gratitude—for being willing to try something in a topic area that most admins have long since abandoned to belligerent partisans. MastCell ^Talk 22:02, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO

I've spoken with Awilley numerous times and believe he is trying to do the right thing by making tailor-made sanctions and restrictions. But have also seen a number of admins say this is overly complex and difficult to enforce. I am definitely more in favor of an admin who imposes highly specific sanctions that do not eliminate the editor from similar areas within the same topic where they are not causing issues. Lastly, I do not see any reason to sanction Awilley but definitely think Atsme has previously been targeted for relatively minor issues by the same admins that defend far worse activity from editors they share biases with. I mean, it couldn't be more obvious if one was slapped in the head with a trout and frankly, I think its despicable.--MONGO (talk) 23:56, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric...I think a careful review of Atsme's comment indicates she was NOT saying JzG had themselves made unilateral actions in the arena in question. However, when we have admins who so voraciously state their peculiar absolutism as far as what qualifies as referencing (even though said references have repeated been found by the consensus of the Wikippedia community to be reliable), their opinion invaribly carries more weight due to their admin status, for better or worse. Opinion crowns with an imperial voice, sadly.--MONGO (talk) 18:44, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Close as this is no longer productive.--MONGO (talk) 23:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

SN54129

First things first, Arbcommers: deprecate the use of "special" / "custom" sanctions, preferably by motion (although noting the discussion below). The whole point of discretionary sanctions is that they level the playing field in contentious areas while treating all editors equally. A unique set of sanctions that may or may not be used does precisely the opposite. Damoclean; or imagine, if you will Thomas, Lord Stanley waiting in the wings at Bosworth deciding which way the chips will fall...

——SN54129 14:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by SashiRolls

I was pleased to find myself missing from AWilley's 29 October 2019 pschitt list.

Can Atsme's TBAN be appealed anywhere other than at ArbCom at this point?

Concerning "Gaslighting": I've seen this term a lot on en.wp over the years, starting probably with SageRad at AE in 2016 and most recently in the exchange between GorillaWarfare and Kudpung on the latter's campaign page for election to the body who will decide this case, if it is taken.

I'm a little hesitant to read AWilley's initial call to delete WP:GASLIGHTING as a "cover-up", but I do think that AWilley does have some problems discerning red & green when observing concerted activities across Wikipedia spaces (mainspace, talkspace, usertalkspace, WPtalk-space, and in disciplinary spaces like this one). Still, the ensuing deletion discussion was interesting.

I get how the "having a reputation developed for you" game works. I've been blocked twice by Awilley (which is actually a significant percentage of their blocking activity), and am, in addition, the recipient of one of his special dispensations. As he says, he doesn't enforce them, they're just little brooches of dishonor we're encouraged to show our wiki-friends at AE parties.

I think that, as Katie has suggested, ArbCom should look into how DS are being used and perhaps just as importantly how they are not being used. I will, time permitting, add to the evidence page once/if one is opened. As often, I seem to be awash in evidence. ^^ In short, yes, Awilley's enforcement in AP2 might well tend towards the arbitrary & capricious, from my point of view. The rules themselves are pretty good, of course.

In the larger context of DS-misuse, I suppose I could appeal Kingofaces43 v. SashiRolls (I & II) soon. I was not very successful in appealing Sagecandor v. SashiRolls (I & II) to ArbCom back in the day. There are some notable similarities (and differences) in the two prosecutions. I suppose that the path to irredeemability would begin with pools of tears at AE, rather than at ArbCom?

Still, I do think Atsme is right to raise the question of the mixed reception and enforcement history of Mr. Awilley's special and less special discretionary black marks, since he took over the templating of AP2 from Coffee. If ArbCom chooses to look into that aspect of this case in conjunction with—or separately from—Awilley's TBAN of Atsme, I'll add some diffs. I first looked into this because I like Atsme. I've commented because I'm not absent from the context of the diffs above (e.g. [73]), though I'm not involved in the discussions surrounding antifa.

🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 12:21, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Collapsing as a clerk action --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 22:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
It is amusing that Calton, of all the involved people who could show up, is directing anyone who is concerned about the misuse of DS to AN instead of to ArbCom. This is, as DGG suggested in Boston (Wikimania), probably the right place for this discussion to be taking place. I would add that the weaponisation of DS is nothing new and goes well beyond the specific example of it that will be given concerning AWilley once we get to the evidence presentation stage.🌿 SashiRolls t · c 23:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC) Analysis of Calton's claims in the context of the en.wp mainspace definition of gaslighting. There is no problem with DS (denial), I am a misguided parachutist (misdirection) making comments about previously unmentioned and unrelated subjects like discretionary sanctions and gaslighting (contradiction). What's more I'm not concerned (despite being one of only two people currently sanctioned by Awilly's special disciplinary measures) (lying), my comments are off-topic and only semi-coherent (destabilize the victim and discredit the victim's beliefs). Thanks for helping by providing Arbs this textbook example. (Cf. e.g. Calton's May 25 block, or his edit summary here) 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 09:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by JzG (American politics 2)

I commend AWilley for making this a narrower ban than I would have argued for. My experience with Atsme is that she is delightful but given to devoting furious energy to lost causes. That was true when I first encountered her at G. Edward Griffin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where she was arguing that we were suppressing Laetrile as a cancer cure; it was true in the GMO case; it has been true in numerous recent disputes around American Politics. At WP:RSN, she referred to the "Russian collusion conspiracy theory", a Fox News talking point. That may be an indicator as to the root of the problem, I don't know. It's pretty clear by now that the right wing media bubble does not share a common fact base with mainstream sources, and that's always going to prove difficult on Wikipedia, especially right now - and I have to confess that does cause me to wonder about the advice she might be giving people via OTRS, if she still has access.

I invite the arbitrators to review the history of Wikipedia:Advocacy ducks, notably it's early version almost wholly the work of Atsme here. This is a response to a one against many dispute here. It may be summarised as: when large numbers of people disagree with you, it's probably because they are all colluding to push an agenda. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed since then.

Example: this edit] to her ACE guide for 2019 switches from Support to Oppose 15 minutes after a sitting arbitrator expressed support for this sanction. Yes, you're allowed to do that, but the inference is clear: your qualities as a Wikipedian depend on how closely you agree with Atsme. That is the mentality expressed in the "advocacy ducks" article and the talk page debates that led to the sanction.

Atsme can be lovely, a delight to be around when not on a hot button issue. She gets very passionate about things and has a hard time accepting when consensus is against her. She can be too prone to ascribe opposition to bias, and attempts to talk her down from the Reichstag as harassment. I think the further away from our US politics articles she stays, the happier she will be, especially in a climate where, as seems likely, her preferred sources are operating on an entirely different factual framework from Wikipedia. Guy (help!) 14:01, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Le sigh. It's not me, it's everybody else. This is very depressing. Guy (help!) 22:44, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare What would you like, please? I have viewed a lot of this as water under the bridge, we're allowed to grow as Wikipedians. DrChrissy died in 2017 and Atsme, a friend on-wiki, created Chris Sherwin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). That's very touching, even though DrChrissy was a tireless advocate for alternative medicine and was eventually topic banned from biomedical topics for fringe advocacy (User talk:DrChrissy/Archive 7 § Community-imposed topic ban). I opposed this article creation but I was wrong: it's clear by now that he passed WP:PROF. I think Atsme is the kind of person who values personal friendships highly and that can lead to great outcomes for the project, like that article, but I fear it also leads her astray. I hope I can help you without burying Atsme any deeper. Guy (help!) 00:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare My uncertainty was as to how far back to go. I have always assumed that the older a diff, the less valid it is. I now understand the ask and will do some work in the morning (or rather, later in the morning, it's 01:43 here now). Guy (help!) 01:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Lengthy dispute over Atsme's attempts to remove Islamophobia references from Stop Islamization of America

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive829 § Islamophobia vs Terrorism Projects 2014-02-16
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive831 § Civility - Harassment 2014-03-05
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive833 § Atsme and BLP violations 2014-03-24
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive846 § BLP violation on IPT 2014-07-09
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive849 § Violations of WP:Civility, WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, and WP:BLPGroup by User:Serialjoepsycho 2014-07-30
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive855 § And the hounding continues 2014-09-21
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive858 § Legal threat? 2014-10-05
• [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive863#Disruption by Djcheburashka, proposed ban(s?)[edit]|Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive863 § Disruption by Djcheburashka, proposed ban(s?)[edit]]] 2014-11-11

Original AN dispute re Griffin article

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive264 § G. Edward Griffin 2015-01-15 - example [74]
• Talk:G. Edward Griffin/Archive 10 § RfC on admissibility of additional sources
• Talk:G. Edward Griffin/Archive 10 § GA status?
• Talk:G. Edward Griffin/Archive 9 § proposal - Atsme asserts, e.g. " I object to "Creationist view of history" because that is labeling with an opinion. He and others see it as historic which makes it noncompliant with NPOV. Also, without trying to mince words, he actually doesn't promote conspiracy theories, the latter of which is considered to be a contentious label, therefore it requires high quality sources with inline text attribution. Leaving POV at the login, we are writing a biography. His books actually dissect factual information which he disseminates from a conspiratorial view with the perception that such conspiracies are a threat to personal freedom." - this is in fact WP:SYN because the sources are clear in identifying books like Jekyll Island as promoting conspiracy theories.

I am sorry, I would go and look through more (from [75]) but I have to pack as I am away this week singing. Fairness is important to me here. I do not want to bury Atsme further, only to show a long history of tenaciously arguing against consensus for including criticism of right-wing groups and figures. From my experience of Atsme the TBAN is proportionate and a net good for both us and her. Guy (help!) 10:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Question from Winged Blades of Godric

@Atsme:- Can you please point me to a few of JzG's administrative actions, under ACDS, in APOL? ∯WBG^converse 16:12, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Calton

Collapsing as a clerk action --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 22:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Two things: The business regarding "gaslighting", its true meaning, and wherever WP:GASLIGHTING goes to/went to/should go to/was redirected is pointlessly complicated and almost irrelevant: by saying that editors were "gaslighting" her, Atsme was claiming that they were LYING. Without strong evidence, that's a straight-up personal attack. It's as simple as that. This is supposed to be an appeal of Atsme's topic ban: a Clerk or Admin should hat statements above that have nothing to do with Atsme and which are merely drive-by shots at Awilley, particularly those of User:Pudeo, User: SN54129, and User:SashiRolls. If they have a problem with Awilley, WP:AN is thataway. --Calton | Talk 10:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC) Response to User:SashiRolls: And it is perfectly in character for you to parachute into a discussion which has nothing to do with you so you can carry on with oft-sanctioned battleground behavior, and to do so in an only semi-coherent fashion. Which, again, is why your off-topic comments should be hatted and -- if necessary -- you should be topic-banned from commenting on things which don't concern you directly. --Calton | Talk 00:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC) Further response: thank you for providing a textbook example of word salad and further evidence that you should be topic-banned from all matters that don't concern you directly, if not a complete site-ban. --Calton | Talk 15:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Objective3000

IMHO, the only thing “wrong” with the current TBan is that it doesn’t encompass all of AP2. Atsme has proved a valuable contributor – in areas outside of AP2. When she steps into the AP2 arena, she runs into difficulty. This is apparently due to mistrust of highly regarded RS and a belief that there is a “deep state” conspiracy within the government. It is also due to perceiving bias where it doesn’t exist because her own biases are coloring her view. I think her lengthy statement here suggests such. I’m not asking for a widening of the TBan; so I’m not presenting a case. Just expressing an opinion that Atsme should not complain about a narrow sanction, avoiding politics would be better for both the project and Atsme herself, and that this request should be declined. (Disclosure: I have had many run-ins with the OP.) O3000 (talk) 23:22, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

American politics 2: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

American politics 2: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Two separate issues in play: the anti-fascism topic ban, and Awilley's boutique DS set. The former is appropriate for us to address here, and I think the topic ban is warranted and necessary. I don't see any evidence of a cover-up or hounding or harassment; I do see an admin trying to get some order in the topic area. That said, as to the discretionary sanctions scheme, I'm not crazy about it and wasn't crazy about it when I first learned of it several months ago. If Awilley runs across an editor, he's going to use his set of discretionary sanctions while all the other 1100+ admins will use another set. It's arbitrary, and I don't like it. But I believe this would be better addressed in a case request about discretionary sanctions, which is yet another thing we've been meaning to take a look at for a while. This would be an excellent opportunity for us to revisit the whole issue. Katie^talk 21:16, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed with Bishonen and KrakatoaKatie that this request appears to address two separate issues: the existence of Awilley's custom sanctions, and the antifascism topic ban he imposed upon Atsme. A topic ban from antifascism is about as standard as discretionary sanction enforcement gets, and so this does not seem to be a great place to also address whether admins should be creating their own sets of custom sanctions for use in areas where discretionary sanctions have been authorized. However it does seem like it would be worth visiting that issue somewhere, since there seem to be many people who share concerns about them. This is the first I've taken much of a look at Awilley's sanctions and while they are certainly a creative approach towards limiting problems in contentious areas, I share some of the concerns that have been expressed above. @Atsme:, I did want to get one piece of clarification from you—you've listed sections of the WP:Administrators policy in the "Clauses to which an amendment is requested" portion of the request. Was that an issue with the template or are you requesting we amend the administrator policy? That policy, as with all policies, is decided by the community, and the Arbitration Committee cannot unilaterally amend policy. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I feel like the focus on the "gaslighting" issue is perhaps not useful here. Gaslighting has one relatively well-accepted meaning, which is the same meaning used at Wikipedia:Gaming the system#Gaming the consensus-building process #4. The previous location of the redirect (at the top of the general WP:Gaming the system page) was confusing and could feasibly lead someone to believe that "gaslighting" could be used to refer to gaming the system more generally, despite the term not having that meaning in standard usage. It's believable that Atsme was using the term in this way—after all, it would hardly be the first term that commonly means one thing, but is used differently in "wikispeak". My opinion is that Awilley started the discussion about the shortlink in good faith because using the term "gaslighting" to refer broadly to "gaming the system" is unusual and misleading, and the shortlink was rightfully moved to its appropriate subsection (where I suspect it was initially intended to go). It does not appear to be an attempt to cover anything up, or hide a misunderstanding—it appears to be an attempt to clarify. But as I said above, I don't think the focus on the "gaslighting" issue is all that relevant. @Atsme: Awilley did not topic ban you for using the term as you have said—he topic banned you for "backsliding into behavior that led to your previous AP topic ban". He linked to your accusations of gaslighting as an example of this, but even if that was all a misunderstanding over the usage of the term and even if we discount those diffs entirely, the topic ban still appears to be appropriate. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:57, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @JzG: It would be helpful if you could provide specific diffs to the behavior you're describing—though you've pointed at these incidences I would like to have the specific links so I can be sure we're referring to the same edits. @Atsme: I understand you take issue with a handful of admins in addition to Awilley, but I'm not sure it's best to try to lump those in with the topic ban appeal—normally discussions of administrator misconduct would happen at a case request, not at an amendment to a topic ban placed by a different admin, where those admins have commented. As it stands I don't see anything in the existing statements that needs to be removed per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Participation (which I am assuming you are referring to when you mention "DECORUM"? Given the ambiguity we've already faced with your reference to "gaslighting", a wikilink would be useful for the absence of doubt as to what you're referring to). GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Atsme: Again, I think the focus on the "gaslighting" issue is not helpful here. There was clearly a discrepancy in how you used the term, vs. how Awilley understood it, and the former location of the WP:GASLIGHTING redirect didn't help matters. But the misunderstanding does not make the topic ban improper; for what it's worth, I also see Awilley's activity regarding the redirect to be in good faith. You mention you would rather put my t-ban on hold, and focus on the bigger issue which is highly problematic—there is no need to put anything on hold, especially given many people (yourself included) have already put a lot of time and effort into this discussion. You can open a separate discussion about the custom discretionary sanctions at any point. I understand if you'd rather not do a whole request from scratch, after already putting effort into writing this one—if you'd rather just copy the relevant portion of your statement below to a new request it would be fine by me. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:19, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @JzG: I'm not sure what was unclear—I was asking for you to provide specific diffs for the behavior you were describing. For example, you wrote That was true when I first encountered her at G. Edward Griffin, where she was arguing that we were suppressing Laetrile as a cancer cure but did not include any diffs that would allow those of us who are unfamiliar with that incident to go familiarize ourselves. I can certainly go look for it, but it's best if you provide the diffs to avoid any doubt that I'm looking at the right argument. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:31, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @JzG: Ah, got it. Yes, it's possible that they're so old that they're not particularly relevant—that's partly why I asked that you do provide diffs, because it's hard to tell from your statement without them how old the behavior is. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:18, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Atsme: Slippage into past behavior is technically not a reason. Slippage into the same behavior that led to your original topic ban is absolutely reason enough for an administrator to reinstate a topic ban in a subsection of the same area. In fact, Awilley specifically noted when he granted your appeal that "backsliding into behaviors that led to the ban will result in further sanctions". Diffs were provided along with the topic ban. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:45, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Atsme: I don't think it's accurate to say this is going nowhere—so far three arbitrators have commented to say that the topic ban appears to be appropriate. I also disagree that the discussion of your topic ban needs to be coupled with discussions of Awilley's custom sanctions—a topic ban is about as standard a DS enforcement action as there comes. Furthermore, aside from the two comments from Nil Einne, that discussion all appears to predate this request. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
• Decline to lift the topic ban on Atsme, which doesn't appear to have been applied inappropriately. I agree with Katie and GW that the custom DS sanctions (or DS in general) should probably be addressed elsewhere in its own discussion. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:33, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Atsme, the topic ban rationale clearly cites five separate diffs where you literally state that various editors are gaslighting you. Awilley didn't T-ban you for linking to a behavioral guideline via internal shortcut. For one thing, in those diffs, you didn't - every instance of the word "gaslighting" in those diffs is lowercase and unlinked, and WP:GASLIGHTING isn't so common a shortcut that it would be obvious you meant the internal shortcut rather than the common word. You were T-banned for backsliding into the same behavior that got you T-banned from AP2 as a whole. The "gaslighting" diffs are examples of that kind of unproductive behavior, but the rest of the rationale clearly describes that the T-ban is based on your behavior as a whole. Again, I don't see anything inappropriate about Awilley's behavior in issuing the T-ban. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 13:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Awilley, I don't see why you can't later remove it independently if you feel it's no longer necessary. All this ARCA has determined is that we don't think you acted inappropriately in applying the TBAN. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:02, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
• Per my colleagues, I do not believe the topic ban was applied inappropriately, so decline to lift it. I also think this ARCA can be closed as withdrawn / denied, per Atsme's comments. Worm^TT(talk) 11:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.