Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea Party movement/Proposed decision

This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched To request an amendment or clarification of an Arbitration decision, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment. To report a violation of an Arbitration decision, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To request the assistance of an arbitration clerk, see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks.

Wikipedia Arbitration
About arbitration Talk Arbitration policy (CU/OS) Guide to arbitration Noticeboard + Talk Search archived proceedings Ban appeals Report
Open proceedings All open requests Case requests Clarification and Amendment requests Arbitrator motion requests Enforcement requests
Active sanctions Contentious topics (Log) General sanctions Editor sanctions
Arbitration Committee Discuss + Contact Members Procedures Elections Talk History Clerks + Talk Clerk procedures
Audit Talk Statistics Talk Reports (pre-2016)
Track related changes
v t e

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Archives

/Archive 1 /Archive 2

This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 1 section is present.

As has been discussed above, the FoF in question appears to have been formulated on the basis of a misunderstood comment, according to the cited diff.
Although that salient fact has been brought to the attention of the drafting arbitrator (AGK) and indirectly acknowledged by another arbitrator (NYB), the arbitrator that drafted the FoF has refused to engage in discussion (other than to state he replied privately to NYB) or to modify the FoF or provide an alternative diff.
Accordingly, if there is no concrete example of my alleged ignoring of a specif sound argument during a specific discussion, there is no conduct issue, leaving only the issue of content.
If it is not the case that AGK found a comment I made in a discussion other than that identified by the cited diff objectionable, then why not delete that point from the FoF?
If content issues are beyond the purview of Arbcom, then an FoF related to a content dispute has no place in an Arbcom proceedings.
This sort of begs the question as to what would be the evaluative methodology applicable here for determining what is and isn't a
sound argument about content. --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 10:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't feel bad. My FOF is based on a minor-or-zero issue item that is unrelated to the article, the TPM or the case. And the "BLP" item mentioned was based on the goofy theory that if you undo a mass deletion, you are fully to blame for every issue in it. And having to go three years back to find even that shows that I'm a BLP saint. North8000 (talk) 11:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "goofy theory" is called taking responsibility for your own actions. — goethean 11:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By that theory, if a vandal blanks an article, and you undo the blanking, then you are the one to blame for every problem anywhere in the article because technically you "inserted" the whole article. North8000 (talk) 11:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We're not talking about vandalism here, but about content disputes with BLP implications. And policy is very clear on that subject: you take responsibility for BLP-related material which you undelete. See WP:BLP#Restoring deleted content. The BLP violations themselves are old news, but your continued evasion of basic editorial responsibility probably contributed to the finding. MastCell ^Talk 20:04, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. I already clearly acknowledged that. So all that is left is a ginned up situation from 3 years ago where it is claimed that some piece of a mass deletion that I undid had a problem. I must be a BLP saint if someone (I believe you) you had to look back that far and be that creative to find something. So we have that and a friendly complimentary comment on a talk page comment which was not about the article, not the TPM and not about the the case listed as items in the FOF. Sounds like a kangaroo court, not arbcom. Hopefully its not too late to reverse that travesty. North8000 (talk) 20:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this, but this FoF seems to make no sense. It claims that Ubikwit ignored sound arguments. However, the diff provided by ArbCom[1] does not show Ubikwit ignoring or even disagreeing with TuckerResearch's argument. Quite the opposite. Ubikwit is actually agreeing with TuckerResearch's argument. Perhaps ArbCom meant to say that Ubikwit agreed with unsound arguments??? If so, these types of sloppy mistakes do not inspire much confidence in the community. Perhaps someone from ArbCom can explain this FoF? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 06:26, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All the FOF's are flawed. They show a lack of understanding of the case which should not have been brought. If you look at the earlier comments by SilkTork you will see there was nothing there. SilkTork made a fine analysis of each editor and could not find anything that was sanctionable. The best solution is to overturn these bans, keep the page under ArbCom and let the AE sort them out. Defending the FOF's by saying, ""does it make an incorrect allegation?" opens the door banning every editor on Wikipedia. My FOF claims my main focus is American politics which is not true at all. It also uses distorted 'evidence.' No matter how many times I corrected it, it never mattered. KillerChihuaha claims I was engaged in battle for simply saying, "It would not be a fork." That's it. That's her evidence. The Arbs couldn't find evidence so they waited hoping for some to appear. But I did a great job on the moderated discussion, never had any history of behaviour problems on the TPm and yet, I got topic banned. The logic seemed to be that I was "the lead editor" because I had the most edits. I had the most edits in 2010 and abandoned the article for editing back in December 2010. This whole thing is nothing but an argument between KillerChihuahua and North8000. That's it. At worst, they could maybe have an interaction ban. You've already pointed out the flaws in the FOF on Arthur. The same is true on all of them. They're all flawed. And why Collect is here at all is still a mystery. Malke 2010 (talk) 12:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All of the remedies on individuals were flawed, and 3/4 of the individual-related FOF's are flawed, some glaringly flawed or baseless. A dart board would have done better. North8000 (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is quite possibly true looking, for example, at Collect. But AFAICT it is impossible to work out whether this is because there is no real case against Collect or just because Arbcom doesn't particularly care whether its findings are properly documented and explained. Formerip (talk) 14:22, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Basically 3 people needed admonishments or warnings, one of those people was completely missed. And nothing that anybody did merited topic bans. Reality and fairness wee completely ignored. The case was misdirected from the start and arbcom did not have the capacity or willingness to see that and correct it. Most needed was putting a framework in place to help the article move forward and instead they have done only damage. I have been a strong supporter of arbcom in the past but this is a clear indicator that it has badly deteriorated. North8000 (talk) 14:30, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know exactly what was merited, but that's partly a subjective judgement over which you can disagree with Arbcom and they can disagree with you (or rather, you could disagree if the decision wasn't so hard to comprehend).

There's no doubt that Arbcom has lost its way on this case. But I find it at least plausible that the sanctions were justified and Arbs have voted based on their own independent observations rather than examining the FoFs and diffs put forward. Of, course, that would be entirely unsatisfactory. Formerip (talk) 14:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• ... I find it at least plausible that the sanctions were justified and Arbs have voted based on their own independent observations rather than examining the FoFs and diffs put forward. Transparency, as a concept, would be thrown out the window if this is true. Any remedy must be based on FOFs and diffs that have been put forward into evidence. If the community remit for ArbCom's powers and duties allows anything else, then it has a very real Star Chamber quality to it. Parties must have an opportunity to review evidence presented against them and respond. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 02:34, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On the merits, it appears to me that TuckerResearch made a claim that a sentence in the article wasn't supported by the source and Ubikwit agreed. The article has been edited, after discussion. The resulting edit was neither as simple as TuckerResearch requested—the sentence wasn't removed, but reworded to reflect the sources). Isn't this exactly what is supposed to happen? One editor sees a claim in an article, doesn't think it is supported by the sources, and says so. The initial request is to remove the unsupported sentence, but a review of the sources results in a modification of the sentence to reflect the actual sources. I don't quite get how agreeing with another editing constitutes ignoring sound arguments. Even if it was imperfect wording, and a better summary is "accepting unsound arguments", this is troubling precedent if accepted. On the one hand, it is dangerously close to a content dispute. However, even if we accept that it is conduct, this sets the bar, not just high, but unattainable. It literally means, if I choose to contribute to a talk page discussion, I must review every argument made relevant to the point I wish to make, assess whether it is sound or unsound, and make sure I accept every sound argument, and reject every unsound argument. I do get that a pattern of tendentious editing is actionable, if one can show that an editor has been informed about a particular point multiple times, with community support for the point, and the editor persists in a contrary position without addressing the point, that such action deserves warnings, and if persisting, blocks or bans. That isn't remotely what happened in this instance. One editor made a point, and a second editor agreed with the point. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:33, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Macht nichts. Ubikwit has violated WP:BATTLE, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:BLP (to the point of oversight), and WP:HOUND. And that's just on TPm, the moderated discussion, and the Arb pages in the last 5 months! Before that he already had a topic ban/interaction ban which he violated almost immediately after. None of that was mentioned in his FOF and it certainly should have been.

All these topic bans should be reversed and the article left to AE to sort. If anybody is a problem, AE will take care of it. Malke 2010 (talk) 16:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]