Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Callanecc (talk | contribs) at 11:49, 14 July 2014 (→‎Clarification request: Argentine History: Motion: MarshalN20 topic ban exemption enacted). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

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Clarification request: Argentine History

Initiated by MarshalN20 Talk at 19:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Argentine History arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Topic Ban

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


Statement by MarshalN20

Hey! I'd like to take the article United States to featured status (current sandbox, with pictures and new lead section, is at User:MarshalN20/Sandbox4). Over the past year I have also led two articles to featured status, the Peru national football team and Pisco Sour, and will soon have a third one with the Falkland Islands.

I was not sure if editing the US history section would be an issue, due to the topic ban that prevents me from editing Latin American history topics (non-cultural) prior to 1980. US history is tangentially related to Latin American history. David recommended me to take the question here in order to avoid any misunderstandings.

I'd like to work in this article to keep demonstrating my true value as an editor. Regards.--MarshalN20 Talk 19:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's worth clarifying that I will use the WP:SUMMARY rule when writing the history section. The only two major topics that I can currently think about (related to Latin America that I will certainly mention, in one or two sentences) are the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. The Monroe Doctrine (and its related practices) and Cuban Missile Crisis will probably only be part of a larger sentence, the former related to hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and the latter to the Cold War. There certainly are more, but I currently cannot imagine going into detail into any of it.--MarshalN20 Talk 02:44, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The ed17

Speaking as a participant in the previous discussion, opposed to MarshalN20, I think that a limited exception for the United States article is appropriate. Nearly all of the history section will not infringe on areas that caused the ban. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • It would be impossible to put together a complete history of the United States without touching multiple times on its interactions with Latin America. Many of those historical interactions would be before 1983, so those portions of the article would be encompassed by the ban. However, I would be willing to consider a limited exception for that particular article similar to the previous Falklands exemption, to be revoked in the event of misconduct. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Seraphimblade and would support an exemption to MarshalN20's topic ban in this case. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:59, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Me three. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Motion: MarshalN20 topic ban exemption

For this motion there are 12 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Proposed:

Notwithstanding the sanction imposed on MarshalN20 (talk · contribs) in Argentine History, he may edit United States, its talk page, and pages related to a featured article candidacy for the article. This exemption may be withdrawn at any time by motion of the Arbitration Committee.
Enacted - Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:49, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support
  1. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Didn't this kind of thing used to be decided without having to have an actual motion? --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:50, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. This seems pretty low risk to me. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:27, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:20, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. With the expectation that the issues that led to the original decision will not recur on this article. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Per brad. NativeForeigner Talk 00:06, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Okay,  Roger Davies talk 07:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain
Comments by arbitrators
Floq-we make clarifications without motions, but this actually alters a previous decision from last year, hence the vote. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:27, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification request: Cold Fusion is/isn't Pseudoscience

Initiated by 84.106.11.117 (talk) at 03:47, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Pseudoscience arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
original ruling: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Proposed_decision

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

Statement by 84.106.11.117

While supported by article content at the time the pseudoscience label was dropped from the Cold Fusion article some time before October 2011.

In the wild it looks like this. Any admin may now ban the Nobel laureate? This is how it should be? It makes no sense to me. What is this doing on my talk page? What does it even mean? Is this the new welcome message?

I've posted one on User_talk:Sandstein talk page to see what happens. Surely he needs such helpful information as much as I do?

further informations

Sandstein, a remarkably productive editor I should add, just demonstrated how the sanctions are being used to ban non-skeptical editors, applicable in one direction only.

Sandstein did not read my deletion review request. My request talks about the one sided nature of these Discretionary Sanctions[1], he responds by posting an info box on my user talk page[2] informing me about these same sanctions. He used imaginary guidelines and retaliates with victim blaming.

I am not the topic of this Request for clarification, is about cold fusion not being pseudoscience while still subjected to pseudoscience sanction.

If the Sanction would work both ways, Sandstein should now be topic banned. This strikes me as a completely idiotic way of doing things, typical skeptic methodology. I would argue the Sanctions themselves are not useful to the project.

My split request was disposed of by skeptical consensus, rather than edit guidelines. I ignored this consensus per Notability guidelines. Notability is the only type of guideline that skeptic teams can not kill by consensus.

Rather than so much as lift a finger to help split the article team skeptic used every possible method and every excuse other than the split criteria to troll the process while crying about the way I avoided "scrutiny". Of course I did! If we look at Sandsteins edit log he has soooooo many contributions he effectively avoids scrutiny himself. I cant possibly read all that? Or can I?

AFD is suppose to be the point where the team of anti-pseudoscience crusaders have to use edit guidelines. In stead the admin deleted by consensus. (he was trying to clean up the backlog we should add) Asking for clarification, from the closing admin (we used irc), and by means of a deletion review is entirely sensible. Not reading it and requiring an account is not. Specially not in that order.

This is not to defend myself but to illustrate the victim blaming routine. How can Sandstein, being an administrator, need further tools to dispose of IP editors? Look how his argument is that I edited fringe topics, as if this should be sufficient evidence of my wrong doings?

If this is how the sanctions are being used, then it is not worth having them in general, in this specific case, using them outside the scope of pseudoscience seems even less useful.

note: It strikes me as odd for the committee to try to rule if something is pseudoscience or not. I think, if you have some precognition about a topic you should use the article talk page and provide reliable sources that make your vision evident.

Thanks for your time.

Statement by Sandstein

84.106.11.117 is an IP address active since 16 June 2014 with few contributions, mostly relating to fringe-y topics such as alien abduction. On 11 July, they requested a deletion review of the article Fleischmann-Pons experiment, which relates to Cold fusion, which is in my layperson's understanding a fringe science topic. In the review request, 84.106.11.117 wrote that "I should note I'm not a new user, I just edit from my ip." As an administrator working at WP:DRV, I summarily closed the review request, suggesting that in discretionary sanctions topic areas where sanctions such as topic bans have been imposed, in view of WP:SCRUTINY, established editors should not make undeletion requests while logged out. I also alerted 84.106.11.117 about the discretionary sanctions applying to pseudo- and fringe science topics. In response, 84.106.11.117 copied the same alert notice onto my talk page and made this request for clarification, the point of which I don't quite see. In view of subsequent statements by 84.106.11.117 such as [3], it appears likely to me that we are being trolled by a returning, possibly previously sanctioned editor.  Sandstein  07:14, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, as long as we are here already: Would it be an appropriate use of discretionary sanctions, under these circumstances, to restrict the person using the address 84.106.11.117 from editing pseudo- and fringe science topics except with their main account (if they are not banned or blocked from doing so already)?  Sandstein  07:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Roger Davies and Seraphimblade: I was probably unclear. I agree that editing only as an IP is allowed and that we shouldn't force anyone to create an account. But I understood the statement by 84.106.11.117 to mean that they already have an account. My question was whether they might legitimately be directed to use that existing account when editing in the topic area covered by sanctions. Otherwise they might be able to avoid any sanctions that might apply to them under their existing account.  Sandstein  11:44, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Johnuniq

I watch Cold fusion and there is often commentary at Talk:Cold fusion regarding a possible new development—something which in the future may validate CF as a new energy source. Wikiversity was mentioned and I had a very quick look and found recently-edited pages like these:

Wikiversity is nothing to do with Wikipedia, but the activity suggests to me that discretionary sanctions in the CF area need to continue. Whether of not CF should properly be called "pseudoscience" can be debated elsewhere as that is not relevant to whether the topic should be subject to discretionary sanctions. Any new energy source with many enthusiastic supporters but no usable power should be treated as if it were pseudoscience at Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 09:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Comment: Hi Sandstein. There's no requirement in policy for people to create accounts to edit with. What they are not allowed to do is evade scrutiny by editing from an IP when they have an account. It is possible to be an established IP editor.  Roger Davies talk 07:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sandstein; I don't think the IP topic-ban you suggest would be appropriate at all. As I said before, nothing in policy requires anyone to create an account before they can edit.  Roger Davies talk
  • I agree with Roger. It's forbidden to edit anonymously to evade scrutiny on one's account, but it's allowed to just not have an account and edit anonymously. There's no precedent for forcing someone to create an account and I don't like the idea of creating such a precedent in this way. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:02, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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