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Clarification request: Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope

Motion adopted. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Initiated by RGloucester at 16:07, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Eastern Europe
Macedonia

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

Statement by RGloucester

This is a matter of housekeeping, and I hope that the honourable members of the Arbitration Committee can assist me by providing some clarification. Recently, I filed a request for arbitration enforcement relating to the article "Origin of the Romanians". In making preparations to file that request, I came across the strange situation whereby I knew discretionary sanctions applied to the relevant article, but I was not sure which of the two related and existing discretionary regimes was most appropriate to use. I expect that's somewhat confusing, so let me explain a bit further.

There are discretionary sanctions regimes in place for articles related to Eastern Europe, and for the Balkans. Unfortunately, the definitions of both 'Eastern Europe' and 'the Balkans' are ambiguous and potentially overlapping. This produced a strange result whereby the relevant editor had originally been notified of the Eastern Europe regime, but was later notified of the Balkans regime in relation to his edits of the same article. In any case, this ambiguity is really not desirable for discretionary sanctions. The definition of 'Eastern Europe' specifically has actually been a matter of substantial dispute on Wikipedia before. One can easily imagine a situation whereby one could 'wikilawyer' about the validity of a notification of the existence of one of the regimes, in an effort to avoid sanctions. I wonder if the the Arbitration Committee can do one of two things: either clearly define the scope of each regime, or merge the two. This way, administrators enforcing sanctions and editors seeking their enforcement will not have to grapple with the ambiguities inherent in the terms 'Eastern Europe' and 'the Balkans', and will be able to avoid a bureaucratic nightmare. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this matter.

@AGK: In response to your question, I endorse the analysis by Thryduulf. RGloucester — ☎ 20:31, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Power~enwiki: Romania is considered part of the Balkans and Eastern Europe in most definitions of both terms. The use of "broadly construed" means that there is no doubt that Romanian-related topics are presently under sanctions. RGloucester — ☎ 20:31, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@EdJohnston: I respect your judgement. Here's the problem I foresee. In the specific case of Iovaniorgovan, he was notified of ARBEE sanctions almost as soon as he started editing here. When his participation in the debate at Origin of the Romanians became increasingly problematic, an administrator DeltaQuad (talk · contribs) notified him of the Balkans sanctions, seemingly unaware of the previous alert, or otherwise disagreeing with the scope of the alert applied, therefore delaying the enactment of sanctions on Iovaniorgovan, and causing other long-term editors to be swept up in his messes. In addition, we now have a strange situation where the page-level restriction that was applied at Origin of the Romanians was logged under the Balkans case log, but the topic bans on Iovaniorgovan and Cealicuca are logged under ARBEE. It's simply a bureaucratic mess, and it should be cleaned up. No one should have to roll the dice to decide which of these regimes to apply in a given case, and logging should make coherent sense, not be scattered all over the place. These sorts of messes make it harder for editors understand DS, and indeed, harder for them to participate in DS areas, for fear of falling into a Kafka-esque trap. We owe it to our editors to have a rationalised system of enforcement. That's why I'm asking for clarification. RGloucester — ☎ 22:25, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As a further example for Mr Johnston, here is a hypothetical. Let's say that someone was editing a Romania-related article, like Origin of the Romanians, and received an ARBEE alert. They then go on to make substantial and problematic edits to articles about the Yugoslav Wars. Would that ARBEE alert still be valid, or would a new Balkans alert be required? These sorts of grey areas...are really not desirable in a DS regime. RGloucester — ☎ 00:14, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to thank the honourable members of the Arbitration Committee for taking up this matter. In response to Future Perfect at Sunrise, whom I greatly respect as an administrator, I'd like to say that your approach is indeed the best one. However, because the nature of the DS scopes implemented by the cases does not align with the specific disputes that brought on the cases, such a methodology is difficult to implement in practice. In as much as the scope of the sanctions is not "conflicts that – directly or indirectly – stem from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the mix of nationalities that was left behind", but "anything related to the Balkans, broadly construed", &c., grey areas quickly become apparent. I presume that the intent behind the broader scope of the sanctions, relative to the locus of the disputes that brought about the cases, was that the disputes that occurred provided evidence to suggest further disputes in the broader topic area were likely, and that it would be best to implement broader sanctions as a preventative measure. Whether that was a correct course of action is not for me to decide, but I will say that, in particular, the existence of the ARBEE sanctions was of a great help in controlling the outbreaks of disruptive editing that occurred at the time of the Ukrainian crisis of 2014...despite the original case not having had anything to do with that topic. In any case, I would advise the Committee to be more careful in its crafting of DS scopes in future, making clear whether it intends to limit such scopes to the locus of the dispute that occurred, or apply sanctions to a broader topic area as a preventative measure. RGloucester — ☎ 18:21, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @AGK: I understand what your motion is trying to do, but I think you need to clarify the logging procedure. Will the logs be unified, or kept separate? RGloucester — ☎ 17:51, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@AGK: I find your proposed change more undesirable than even the present mess, in line with what was said by Mr Rob. As for why, it will do nothing to solve the problem about when to apply each regime, will do nothing to sort out the scattered logging procedures that I described above, and will in fact only make this whole business MORE confusing. The goal of a merger was to eliminate questions about which regime to apply in areas of geographical overlap, like Romania, as demonstrated by Thryduulf below, and also to centralise logging so as to avoid the situation of having multiple sanctions related to one particular article logged under different regimes. Your proposal will leave parallel bureaucracies in place, seemingly for no purpose, and leave behind a mess for others to sort through. The idea that updating templates, &c., is too much work is very sad. ArbCom established sanctions, and has a responsibility to the community to maintain those sanctions in a rational way. If you need my help cleaning up templates, I can offer it, as I have experience in that area. In any case, I support Mr Rob's motion as the most sensible approach. The other alternative I can forsee would be to clarify the scopes of the two cases to make them easier to differentiate, but the merger seems to have more support, and is easier to implement. RGloucester — ☎ 16:45, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by power~enwiki

I recommend the committee make a motion of clarification here. The articles on Eastern Europe and Balkans are both unclear to whether Romania is part of the region. Neither of the disputes leading to discretionary sanctions particularly apply to Romania; the Balkans dispute primarily involved Bulgaria, Greece and the former Yugoslavia. The Eastern Europe dispute primarily involved Poland, Russia, and the Baltic States; the more recent crisis in the Ukraine has also fallen under those sanctions.

I'm not certain that Romania falls under any Discretionary Sanctions at this time. An explicit list of countries affected (rather than a region name) may be necessary. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:28, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf (re: Eastern Europe/The Balkans)

Looking at our articles about Eastern Europe and the Balkans, there is indeed overlap between them. Taking a reasonably (but not excessively) broad interpretation some or all of the following countries are included (sometimes depending on context):

Country Eastern Europe Balkans
Albania Yes Yes
Belarus Yes No
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes1 Yes
Bulgaria Yes Yes2
Croatia Yes Yes3
Czechia Yes4 No
East Germany Yes5 No
Estonia Yes6 No
Greece Yes1, 7 Yes8
Hungary Yes4 No
Kosovo Yes1 Yes
Latvia Yes6 No
Lithuania Yes6 No
Macedonia Yes1 Yes
Moldova Yes No9
Montenegro Yes1 Yes
Poland Yes No
Romania Yes Yes3
Russia Yes10 No
Serbia Yes1 Yes
Slovakia Yes4 No
Slovenia Yes Yes3
Turkey No Yes2, 10
Ukraine Yes No

Notes:

  1. Geographically (sometimes) South Eastern Europe if this is distinguished
  2. Usually only in geographical contexts
  3. Only in (some) political contexts
  4. Geographically usually Central Europe when this is distinguished, Eastern Europe when it isn't
  5. Prior to reunification only
  6. Only in Soviet/Cold War contexts
  7. Only in religious contexts
  8. Only the mainland in geographic contexts; included in only a few political contexts (most notably Macedonia naming dispute)
  9. Very occasionally included in political contexts, but should not be for discretionary sanctions purposes
  10. Only the European part

Based on this, Eastern Europe (when South Eastern Europe is not distinguished separately) is a near complete superset of the Balkans, so merging these into a single authorisation of "Eastern Europe including the Balkans and the Macedonia naming dispute." would resolve all the issues the OP raises. No actual restrictions would be altered, only the case they are logged under would change. Possibly those who are formally aware of only one scope would need to be informed they are now formally aware of the newly combined scope, but not definitely and this would only be a one-time thing. Thryduulf (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree completely with RGloucester - either the scope of both restrictions should be clarified so there is no overlap, or the restrictions should be merged into one (and Rob's proposal is a sensible way to achieve this). AGK's proposal is the worst of both worlds as it increases the bureaucracy and makes the confusion worse: at present there is no ambiguity that sanctions related to Poland should be logged under the EE case, if this proposal were to pass then there would be as sanctions could be placed under either or both cases; all the while it would not resolve the existing ambiguity over issues related to e.g. Romania. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by EdJohnston

Agree with the views of User:AGK. There is little upside to modifying the existing sanctions, and a possible downside. Even the present request doesn't give a persuasive reason why a change is required. In the recent AE about Origin of the Romanians nobody made the argument that the topic wasn't covered under WP:ARBEE. Even if ARBEE and ARBMAC do overlap, it's hard to see that as a problem.

Many of the existing DS are about nationalism. In the ideal case, we would have some kind of universal sanction that could be applied to nationalist editing anywhere in the world. EdJohnston (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fut.Perf

Speaking as somebody who has helped enforcing both sets of sanctions numerous times, I think there's rarely be much of a problem in determining which rule to apply, even if they overlap. For me, the crux of the matter is really not a mechanistic application of what country counts as belonging to what continental region. Those are pretty arbitrary attributions, and to take just one example, you will rarely find Greece described as belonging to "Eastern Europe", even though obviously its geographical longitude is well within the range of other countries that are. What matters is really more the nature of the underlying political struggles motivating the disruption we find on Wikipedia. Speaking broadly, "Eastern Europe" sanctions have mostly been invoked dealing with ethnic/national conflicts that broke up – directly or indirectly – in the wake of WWII, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, or the collapse of the Soviet Union. The "Balkans" sanctions have been invoked dealing with conflicts that – directly or indirectly – stem from the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the mix of nationalities that was left behind. I'd personally be opposed to merging the two sanction rules. It shouldn't really matter in practice, if it wasn't for the practice of some admin colleagues (unnecessary and not really advisable, in my view, but still common) to hand out sanctions whose scope is always automatically identical with the entire set of topics covered by the DS regime. For instance, instead of topic-banning somebody from Serbian-Croatian conflicts, which might be entirely sufficient in an individual case, they always automatically reach for a topic ban from all Balkan topics, because that's what the DS rule applies to. I'd find it regrettable if these colleagues were to take a merger of the two DS rules as indicating that in the future all such sanctions should be handed out straight for "all of Eastern and Southeastern Europe", which would almost certainly be overreaching in most cases. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope: Clerk notes

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

Eastern Europe and Balkans discretionary sanctions scope: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • On an initial review, discretionary sanctions in Macedonia pertain to the Balkans region, which is the Southeastern Europe peninsula. Treating the Balkans as part of Eastern Europe seems to be a stretch. Are you sure that the two overlap? The article seems to be a bad test case: it relates to the distant origin of a people, which involves by its nature a broad range of geography. While awaiting comment, I'll say generally that I need to be convinced of good reason for changing any discretionary sanctions remedy. The changes can themselves cause short-term dispute and confusion, and defaulting to no change is a sensible practice. AGK ■ 17:28, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Special thanks indeed to Thryduulf for sharing a useful, methodical assessment of the area. To move us towards a conclusion (one way or the other), I will draft a motion shortly. AGK ■ 11:06, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re. logging and RGloucester: I have proposed amending each case separately, without a disruptive "merger". In practice enforcement requests are always made in the context of a single arbitration remedy – ignoring all others – and so having two with the same scope will have no effect. At the same time, it avoids the need to update a bunch of notices, insist that existing sanctions are still in effect, and change how daily enforcement is carried out. AGK ■ 18:11, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per Thryduulf's assessment, merging the two DS areas into something like "Eastern and Southeastern Europe" sounds like it would make enforcement a bit easier. But that does highlight their extremely broad scope: the history, society, geography, etc. of half a continent. Both motions seem to have been based on the actions of a handful of editors and the Balkans case is now over a decade old. Perhaps it's time to consider rescinding or refining these. – Joe (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merging the two makes sense to me as it doesn't increase the scope of the two DS simply puts them together for convenience and clarity. And it would be helpful to include a list of the countries involved. I am comfortable leaving the DS in place as it does not restrict editing, but is there to be used in case of future problems, and there may well be future problems. SilkTork (talk) 09:55, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think merging the two as SilkTork said would make sense for clarity sake. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Thryduulf for your extremely useful table. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:09, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, thank you. I want to note that it was extremely helpful in parsing this situation. ~ Rob13Talk 04:24, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Motions: Eastern Europe and Balkans scope

Proposals withdrawn in favour of (3). AGK ■ 20:21, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Proposed:

At Amendment II in Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe is replaced as text by Eastern Europe or the Balkans.

Support
  1. Proposed. I take Fut.Perf's point, but this topic has been trying for the Wikipedia community. On balance, I am content with drawing the lines slightly more broadly than may be required in every case. AGK ■ 10:30, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. ~ Rob13Talk 17:16, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:02, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Prefer option 3. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
Comments
  • Appeals or sanctions under the EE case should continue to be logged as Eastern Europe. The scope of other cases or authorised discretionary sanctions has no effect. AGK ■ 18:09, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(2) Proposed:

At Remedy 3 in Macedonia, the Balkans is replaced as text by Eastern Europe or the Balkans.

Support
  1. Proposed. AGK ■ 10:30, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. ~ Rob13Talk 17:16, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:02, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Prefer option 3. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
Comments
  • And here, appeals or sanctions under the EE case should continue to be logged as Macedonia. The scope of other cases or authorised discretionary sanctions has no effect. AGK ■ 18:09, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(3) Proposed:

At Amendment II in Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe is replaced as text by Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Remedy 3 in Macedonia is superseded by this amendment.

For these motions there are 9 active arbitrators. 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0–1 5
2–3 4
4–5 3
Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:05, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support
  1. ~ Rob13Talk 17:16, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. This seems like the neater solution. – Joe (talk) 13:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. This overall seems to be the way to go. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:02, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I prefer this. It's a bit more effort to deal with the existing notices, but should make things simpler going forward. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I explained in the arb discussion section why this is undesirable. AGK ■ 07:34, 10 February 2019 (UTC) Switched from oppose. Reconsidered based on community comment about the difficulty that might be caused by two remedies covering the same area. AGK ■ 19:53, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
Comments
  • Proposing as an alternative to 1/2 without comment on whether we should do this at all, to avoid the odd situation of authorizing the exact same discretionary sanctions in two different cases. That just seems like a mess waiting to be cleaned up when some future Committee changes the sanctions in one place but forgets about the other. I hope to be able to look at this situation and actually support or oppose in the near future rather than maintaining my current inactivity on the matter. ~ Rob13Talk 04:17, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've placed my votes after a review of the situation. This seems to be an improvement to me, reducing the overlap while not "losing" anything. Whether the DS should be removed entirely seems to be a separate question, and one best answered after we know how these DS operate when enacted in a less confusing manner. As a point of clarification on awareness, note that editors who were "aware" of the Balkans discretionary sanctions will need to be made aware of the Eastern Europe and Balkans sanctions before they can be subject to DS. This is a small hiccup, but it actually is rather sensible, since Eastern Europe and the Balkans is a superset of the Balkans. I consider it a happy accident that this merger would likely result in editors being made aware of the sanctions active in the broader topic area they're editing. ~ Rob13Talk 17:22, 10 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification request: Manning naming dispute

Initiated by MattLongCT at 01:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Manning naming dispute arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Remedy 15


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


Information about amendment request

15) The standard discretionary sanctions adopted in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate for (among other things) "all edits about, and all pages related to... any gender-related dispute or controversy... broadly construed" continue to remain in force. For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea Manning. Any sanctions imposed should be logged at the Gamergate case, not this one.


Statement by MattLongCT

I am seeking a clarification and proposed amendment to Manning concerning its current relevance in regards to enforceable actions. The case in question has not had a formal amendment since 2013. Currently, the case is in a grey area since it cites Sexology even though the case had its discretionary sanctions since rescinded. This has not been noted anywhere in the page for Manning.

However, it is listed in Wikipedia:General sanctions#Obsolete sanctions. Separately, Template:Ds/alert says:
Pages dealing with transgender issues including Chelsea Manning... and Manning naming dispute) (superseded by the GamerGate decision.) (Gamergate never explicitly did this according to its case page.)

I fail to see any consistency for what the exact status of Manning is supposed to be. In resolving this, my proposal is that the remedies continue forward with only a slight amendment to show that the case now serves as a clarification of Gamergate. This field of debate still has much activity, so in my view having this exact case to fall back on would be preferable. Gamergate did not once reference LGBT+ issues specifically, so I do not see the problem of having this Manning serve to supplement it.

For the record, this is my first time ever posting in WP:ArbCom, so that might be nice to know. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 04:31, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Response to SilkTork

It would be simpler to do that; I would agree. However, my preference is for an amendment over a rescision. One could reasonably interpret GamerGate as not including transgender or preferred pronoun debate. Maybe it's just me who has noticed it, but I don't think that Manning has been applied much since Gamergate was issued. For example, I took a look at discussions such as this one, and I can't seem to find a single instance where a person was formally notified of GamerGate DS (including users named in GamerGate). I did find instances of users being notified of the Sexology Discretionary Sanctions. For that particular discourse, I could not find a single instance of GG/DS applied during that Early June 2015 period (I found one GG/DS alert from months later).

In my view, if the committee felt that Sexology was too ambiguous in 2013 to find a need for Remedy 15 of Manning, then I would say that should go double for GamerGate. It's more broad than Sexology sure, but that is why this clarification is needed and would ensure that it is applied properly and consistently. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 22:01, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Secondary Statement by MJL

I have been keeping up with the statements made in this request. I have begun to notice that discussion has drifted away from my original question somewhat. Therefore, I am presenting this secondary statement.

First of all, in response to Katie's question, I am grateful of BU Rob13 for noting their December 2016 Request. However, I will state that I intentionally did not include in this request any mention of nor make any request related to GGTF. My intention was simply to clean up the issues associated with the inconsistent application of DS/alerts in LGBT-related topics.

Originally, my participation in this RfC brought me to this conclusion. To elaborate: though there is a gender-related dispute concerning the Matrix, the DS Talk page template has not been placed. I found this odd for such a controversial dispute.

Furthermore, and not to sound like a Wikilawyer, it is of my belief that by removing Remedy 15, the committee would give credence to those that might corrupt the committee's intentions for doing so. This could falsely give credence to the belief that Transgender-related topics are no longer controversial and don't fall under the DS regime anymore. There are certainly some parliamentary procedural viewpoints that may justify this view. I would rather keep Remedy 15 as it is rather than seeing it be striked in all honesty. It just leads to more questions of "intent of ArbCom." I primarily just want to avoid those disingenuous discussions before they really come up.

Penultimately, I will say that if the committee was to move to formally supercede GGTF, then they would also most likely have to amend or rescind Remedy 1.1 of Arbitration enforcement 2 which cites that case (more specifically this motion). The whole thing is rather complicated, so that is why I sticking with my original request. Otherwise we dig way too deep into the weeds here.

Finally, Guerillero just taught me a new idiom: Tempest in a teapot. I would say that would be a fair criticism to apply to this request, yeah. This is really just glorified housekeeping.

Thank you all! ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 23:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Opabinia regalis

I do agree with their concerns. Aesthetically, GGTF is a nicer case to put this all under, yet Gamergate was the one of the two to outgrow its original jurisdiction for whatever reason. However, we could just rename the case something like GGTF 2 or Gender-related Disputes if we are so inclined. Just a thought. I am happy with the current motion as it stands either way. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 16:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Seren Dept

The GamerGate scope seems purposely broad enough to cover earlier cases like Manning or GGTF, and similar issues in the future. I don't think anyone would win an argument claiming that transgender-related issues are outside of that scope, though I suppose it would be harmless to explicitly include them. I think the related DS are regularly applied and I would guess that editors in those areas are widely aware. Maybe warnings are not logged or aren't where you're looking, or maybe I'm wrong and it could be more widely publicized.

I guess narrowness is likable in sanctions, but for this I don't think it would be an improvement. Seren_Dept 03:47, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alfie

I support this change - it doesn't make much difference to the way this remedy will be enforced, but nonetheless it's worth being explicit about these things. There are bad faith editors who will attempt to adhere to the word of the sanction and not the spirit - may as well tighten down the wording to match the intention. -- a. get in the spam hole | get nosey 10:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guerillero

Seems like a storm in a teacup to me. Manning didn't create any sanctions; it was only reminding people of the sanctions that were already in place at the time of the case. The sanctions that were rescinded in the Sexology motion were de facto recreated when we voted to impose the GamerGate sanctions less than a year later. If people strongly care, you could redirect people to GamerGate to make it covered de jure, but that seems to be at the discretion of admins at AE on a particular request. As for GGTF, the sanctions 100% GamerGate sanctions.

The gender gap on Wikipedia is indisputably falls under any gender-related dispute or controversy. Since DS have been standardized for close to a decade and logging has happened on the same page for 5 years, deciding if the sanction should be logged in section A or section B is pretty much the only confusion that can happen. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 22:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf (re Manning name dispute)

MattLongCT's idea to rename the case something like "Gender-related disputes" is a good one and not without precedent - "Footnoted Queries" was renamed by motion to "Editing of Biographies of Living Persons" when it outgrew it's original scope. Thryduulf (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Opabinia regalis: As an alternative to renaming Gamer Gate or shoehorning this into GGTF you (the committee) could open a new case "Gender-related disputes" for the sole purposes of collating and renaming the existing sanctions. It would also provide a suitable and clear venue for future clarification or amendments requests to expand or contract the topic area covered or the sanctions applied without implying such were at all related to either Gamer Gate or the GGTF. This could of course be done (almost) equally well after the currently proposed motion passes ("almost" as it would require two lots of paperwork rather than one). Thryduulf (talk) 12:03, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Manning naming dispute: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • Recuse for this request for clarification based on my comment above. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 22:32, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Manning naming dispute: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Awaiting further statements, but this seems like a straightforward fix. I agree that transgender issues would fall under the GamerGate DS. ~ Rob13Talk 14:43, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • 15 doesn’t really need closing because it isn’t a DS authorization. It’s more just a reminder that there are DS out there that apply. ~ Rob13Talk 22:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I invite statements on whether we should rescind DS in the GGTF case in favor of a similar remedy specifying that everything related to the GGTF is within the scope of GamerGate. That would put all gender-related disputes under one roof at the AELOG, which may be desirable. ~ Rob13Talk 03:39, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @KrakatoaKatie: For history, I asked for GGTF to be rescinded in favor of falling under GamerGate back in 2016. At the time, the Committee believed there wasn't 100% overlap, which I continue to disagree with. The "gender gap" in editors as a whole is certainly a controversy, in my opinion, and DS are purposefully construed broadly to cover any possible edge cases by association. There was also some question about continuity at the time, but no-one ever considered the possibility of redirecting the old "code" for GGTF to GamerGate as we recently did for the Balkans. We could even further make "gender" a code for GamerGate in the relevant templates, if we wished, to make it super easy to find them. I'll type up a motion tonight for both of these. ~ Rob13Talk 22:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Personally, I think re-naming cases years after they're closed is poor form and likely to make historical references to the case confusing. Let's just add "gender" as a code that targets GamerGate at {{Ds/alert}} and be done with it. ~ Rob13Talk 00:49, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree this needs fixing. Would it be simpler and cleaner to do with Manning as was done with Sexology? That is, close Remedy 15, and state that gender-related disputes are covered under Gamergate: [1]. SilkTork (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with SilkTork that closing Remedy 15 and moving these disputes to Gamergate is cleanest. And I've often wondered why GGTF and Gamergate haven't been moved together. Katietalk 01:43, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, I've fallen behind on ARCA lately, so this is a little late. I see the point here - there's lots of overlap between cases - but I'm not sure that consolidating everything under GamerGate is a good solution. In fact I dislike the idea of ever referencing GamerGate for any purpose other than talking about GamerGate. If I had my druthers (well, does anyone ever get just one druther?) I'd consolidate everything at GGTF, rather than referring all gender-related disputes to a page about a very specific, narrow individual example. (OK, yes, GGTF is also a specific example, but at least it's our own example.) Also, these issues get into the media every so often (a recent example) - more often than many other content-oriented disputes that have come to arbcom - which is not a context in which reanimating GamerGate-related disputes is desirable. IMO if we're going to reorganize these sanctions anyway, I'd prefer to stop giving unnecessary prominence to that specific incident. Opabinia regalis (talk) 10:22, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Motion: Manning naming dispute

To consolidate and clarify gender-related discretionary sanctions, the Arbitration Committee resolves that:

  1. Remedy 15 of the Manning naming dispute case is amended to read:
    The standard discretionary sanctions adopted in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate for (among other things) "all articles dealing with transgender issues" "all edits about, and all pages related to ... any gender-related dispute or controversy" and associated persons remain in force. For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea/Bradley Manning. Any sanctions imposed should be logged at the Sexology GamerGate case, not this one.
  2. Clause 2 of the February 2015 motion at the Interactions at GGTF case is struck and rescinded. Nothing in this motion provides grounds for appeal of remedies or restrictions imposed while discretionary sanctions were in force. Such appeals or requests to lift or modify such sanctions may be made under the same terms as any other appeal.
  3. The following amendment is added to the Interactions at GGTF case:
    The standard discretionary sanctions adopted in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate for (among other things) "all edits about, and all pages related to ... any gender-related dispute or controversy" remain in force. For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any discussion regarding systemic bias faced by female editors or article subjects on Wikipedia, including any discussion involving the Gender Gap Task Force. Any sanctions imposed should be logged at the GamerGate case, not this one.
For these motions there are 8 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 5
1–2 4
3–4 3

Support
  1. Noting that we don't have to modify other remedies from other cases that refer to the Interactions at GGTF discretionary sanctions, because they didn't refer to the use of those discretionary sanctions to impose new sanctions. That was a problem unique to the Manning naming dispute case. ~ Rob13Talk 03:18, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. WormTT(talk) 11:47, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  3. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:17, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  4. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Katietalk 21:20, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Windmill-tilting, I suppose. My issue is with the status quo, not the specific proposed modifications, but I dislike letting the opportunity pass by for fixing the objectionable feature of pointing all "gender-related disputes" to GamerGate. I don't want to rename that case (it got media attention in its own right, so a rename really would be confusing, even with redirects and whatnot). Pointing everything back to GGTF seems like the least-worst solution. I really, strongly believe that it is inappropriate to be directing new editors, in a topic area where we know there are specific recruiting efforts on that subject and where we know our miscues tend to attract media attention, to GamerGate-related material. But I have trouble putting my exact objections into words - "it's too Internetty" is kind of unsatisfying - and nobody else seems to mind, so maybe I'm the crazy one? Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. AGK ■ 18:34, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comments

Clarification request: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles

Initiated by Doug Weller at 11:32, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Palestine-Israel articles arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

Statement by Doug Weller

My clarification request concerns the article for Ilhan Omar, a member of the United States House of Representatives. She's a controversial person in part simply because she is a Muslim and in part because of some comments on Israel. I added the usual ARBPIA template at the top of the page and have told some non-ECP editors about the ruling applying to them if they edit related content in the article. I've been asked at Talk:Ilhan Omar#ARBPIA if 1RR applies to the content relating to the dispute. I've always assumed that it doesn't automatically apply and only applies if the {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} is added to the talk page and the edit notice {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} added to the article.

I'd like to confirm that:

1. The plain talk page template without {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} means that the only restriction on the article applies to non-ECP editors editing within the area of the dispute. 1RR does not apply and cannot apply to only part of an article.

2. If edits to the article not relating to the dispute suggest that the subject is being targeted because of her positions on the dispute (or her Muslim identity) it's permissible to apply ECP to the article without the other restrictions or simply to apply the AE restrictions template even though the article as a whole doesn't fall within the area of the dispute. It's increasingly my opinion that this should be done. Interestingly the article on her fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has a section on the dispute but Talk:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez show it covered only by American Politics but with a 1RR and enforced WP:BRD (Template:American politics AE).

@AGK: You've said that "The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page" and others seem to agree. But that isn't what the text we voted on said or what I understood it to mean at the time. The motion we voted on says "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict." No mention of "all content". Suggesting that it applies to all content (which would mean even in pages where there's no talk page notice about ARBPIA) seems an overreach to me. What might be a reasonable argument is that by putting the sanctions notice on the talk page, even though I didn't add the specific restrictions, puts the entire article under 1RR. Is that the argument you are making? But that raises the question why have the two notices? We should only have the one notice, the one that spells out the sanctions. As for the edit notice, this was my interpretation of this clarification request. We discussed edit notices and awareness there extensively and the motion we passed says
Editors who ignore or breach page restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator provided that, at the time the editor ignored or breached a page restriction:
The editor was aware of discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict, and
here was an editnotice ({{ds/editnotice}}) on the restricted page which specified the page restriction.
That's what WP:ACDS says now. It seems unreasonable to say that if the page is mainly about another area that it doesn't need an edit notice related to the ARBPIA 1RR restriction. Doug Weller talk 21:55, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Calthinus

Doug Weller if you don't mind, I'd like to clarify the question(s) here a bit, as your original request is actually touching on multiple different issues that could be relevant for whether a page is ARBPIA... and I'd like to make clear the options among which we unsure which matches global (as opposed to local i.e. page-respective) en-wiki policy.

1) The simplest of all, that some of Omar's comments that drew controversy were about Israel. She is an American politician though and the controversy is in America. Does this mean it is (a) not ARBPIA at all, (b) ARBPIA for specifically those comments and the ensuing controversy or (c) ARBPIA in total.

2) Probably the comment Ilhan Omar that made the most controversy (aside from mostly religious Christian right-wingers flipping out about her hijab, which I don't personally think is relevant to ARBPIA) is her view that pro-Israel lobbyists have "hypnotized" people. To many Jews, including many progressive Jews, this is an offensive anti-Semitic canard that is all the worse because Omar herself is hypocritically the victim of religious bigotry, while for others, again including people who are Jewish, it is media (especially conservative media) taking what she said out of context. Without commenting on which side is "right", there are actually two questions here:

  • 2a) Are pro-Israel lobbyists or lobbying groups covered by ARBPIA, and are comments about them by others. Does this make (a) nothing ARBPIA, (b) just the material related to pro-Israel lobbying/ists, (c) the whole article for subjects involved ARBPIA.
  • 2b) Again without commenting on the "correctness" of either side, Omar is accused of antisemitism. Full disclosure my personal view is that she is more chronically inconsiderate and communalist than she is anything akin to David Duke, which is not going to be popular with either side. While obviously most non-Israeli Jews are non-Israeli and indeed a significant minority are critical of the structure of the Israeli state, issues of global antisemitism are central to Israeli identity. Do figures (wide range: Omar to Sebastian Gorka to David Duke, no I do not believe they belong in the same category but these are an easy and relevant examples that are not --yet-- covered by ARBPIA) who have commentary on their nation's foreign policy via Israel and also antisemitism become covered by ARBPIA in the capacity of (a) not at all, (b) Israel and antisemitism related material, (c) just Israel material or (d) in totality?

3) As it stands currently, Doug Weller's writeup mentions Omar's very visible Muslim faith. Islam is not definitively "Israeli/Palestinian domain", however just like antisemitism there is a lot of interaction, as there is a sense of pan-Islamic solidarity regardless of the reality of this solidarity, on both sides. Furthermore, although this fact may be regrettable, by wearing the hijab and by spearheading the effort to allow head coverings in federal government processes, Omar became an iconized living symbol of religious Muslims in the US (again, personally I find this incredibly problematic on many different grounds but it is hard to deny it has become the case) and has been punished for it time and time again by unabashed Islamophobes on social media elsewhere. At first glance this may not seem relevant, but since Doug brought it up, it is worth mentioning that issues of Muslim immigrant assimilation do play a role in debates about how Muslim Americans can relate to American foreign policy (I am not implying all Muslim Americans are anti-Israel/pro-Palestine/or anything whatever, but one cannot deny that this is relevant). Should this also be a consideration? Personally I think, no, but it has already been brought up and is worth asking because I can see another side here as well

Hope I've made the issues here more, not less clear?--Calthinus (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shrike

@AGK: But per PIA General 1RR restriction it applies to "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict" and not to the content. I btw agree with you AGK and think it should apply to the content but then the wording should be changed --Shrike (talk) 20:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Huldra

Agree with AGK and Shrike: when ARBPIA notice is place, then it is 1RR for the whole article.

As for changing the rules (so that ARBPIA is only for a part of the article)...Please don't. The usefulness of that does not make up for the added level of complication (The rules are more than complicated enough as it is!) Huldra (talk) 21:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Icewhiz

I'd like to introduce this AE case into evidence. The AE case involved, in part, edit warring in Acid throwing - which is mostly not ARBPIA - however Acid throwing#Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip is very much ARBPIA related. Such ARBPIA sections are common in longer pages - and applying this on the section would make sense. Ilhan Omar is in the border-zone between reasonably and broadly (as much of the coverage of her, through the years, is focused on antisemitism/Israel/etc.) overall, and specific sections of the page are very much ARBPIA related. Icewhiz (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

I can't actually tell what everyone is proposing in this discussion. The question is whether to apply ARBPIA only to entire articles or selectively to parts of articles. The former would be a simpler rule, but it can also lead to absurdity. A year or so ago there was a huge edit war on List of state leaders in 2016 (or some other year) over the 3 lines that applied to Palestine. It would ridiculous to apply ARBPIA to the other 250 or so items in that list just because of those 3 lines. I think that what we need is something like this: if an article is largely related to the I-P conflict, it is covered in toto; otherwise the parts of an article related to the I-P conflict are covered. Zerotalk 08:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish

There's a lot of verbiage up there (says the long-winded guy), but the key thing to me is that unusual restrictions like 1RR should never be held to be applicable at a page without the admin-placed editnotices and other templates that explicitly make them so and which are hard to miss. Drama-frought topics are among the most likely to attract new editors, so there's a serious WP:BITE problem here. If I'd ended up blocked my first week of editing, for violating an obscure and excessive rule I didn't know about and which applied only to a particular page, I probably never would have come back. Consider also that new editors can't tell who's an admin, and which concerns to take seriously (lots of noobs get lots of grousing and templates from lots of people; a DS notice from an admin isn't likely to be interpreted as special by someone who doesn't know the ropes yet, but a big warning every time they edit a particular article is harder to ignore).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles: Clerk notes

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

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • First: for rules this complex, we shall need to ensure the guidance (like editnotices) is unambiguous. ARBPIA stacks general remedies on top of one another, necessitating requests for clarification like this one. Let's also make sure we try hard to simplify 'spaghetti junction' templates like {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}}, which needs to use about three times fewer words.
    The PIA General 1RR restriction applies to all content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This includes parts of an otherwise-unrelated page. The page need not have the standard 1RR template before the restriction applies, though clearly administrators should not mindlessly sanction for reverts by unaware users even if a strict reading of the procedures would permit enforcement. Whether another remedy shares jurisdiction on a particular page does not change this position. AGK ■ 20:18, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The 1RR restriction applies to "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". It does not apply to "any edit", just "any page". As such, a page that couldn't be "reasonably construed" to be within the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area is not subject to 1RR, even if a small amount of content related to that topic area would place it within the topic area if "broadly construed". The use of "reasonably construed" instead of "broadly construed" was quite intentionally done. I would say a page like this is "broadly construed" to be in the topic area, but not "reasonably construed" to be there. Discretionary sanctions are active, but 1RR is not (by default). ~ Rob13Talk 03:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • As a side note, enforcing administrators could choose to apply 1RR to any page "broadly construed" to be within the topic area as a discretionary sanction, if desirable. It's just not automatic. I see this as optimal, since it allows administrators to tailor the sanctions on pages at the fringe of this topic area to the level of disruption they're experiencing. Does this change your opinion on whether we should be expanding the general 1RR sanction, Shrike? ~ Rob13Talk 03:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • To correct a point of confusion: {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} has no effect other than to notify editors of the sanctions in place on the topic area. It does not need to be on the talk page to "activate" discretionary sanctions on the article, though its presence is desirable to increase awareness of the sanctions. I find that template somewhat problematic, even, because it seems to imply that the set of articles with 1RR and the set of articles with discretionary sanctions are identical. This is false, since 1RR is "reasonably construed" and discretionary sanctions are "broadly construed". All articles with 1RR have discretionary sanctions active, but not all articles with discretionary sanctions active fall under the general 1RR. ~ Rob13Talk 03:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @KrakatoaKatie: Including the ECP, actually. ECP can be applied as a discretionary sanction if needed to control actual disruption. ~ Rob13Talk 05:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • i have a problem saying that the ARBPIA 1RR restriction applies to all content when the page AGK linked to himself clearly says otherwise. There will be a couple thousand more pages covered under that restriction if we move from 'pages' to 'content'. As for this particular page, I think it's a real stretch to include it under ARBPIA, but it's obviously covered under AP2, which can do what Doug wants except for the ECP. Katietalk 01:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think linking this to ARBPIA is really a stretch, and would set a precedent that other pages would be added to ARBPIA that necessarily wouldn't need to be. As Katie stated above AP2 would cover this. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:16, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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