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Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate
Case clerks: Ks0stm (Talk) & Sphilbrick (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Roger Davies (Talk) & Beeblebrox (Talk) & David Fuchs (Talk)
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 or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behaviour during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision. Preliminary statements by uninvolved editorsThe 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. Statement by Cla68I've wanted to participate with editing this article, but have mostly held back because of the vitriol and condescending attitudes presented by some of the established editors who are heavily involved in that article. There are some indications, namely when Future Perfect of Sunrise prematurely shut down that AN discussion and other examples, of improper admin conduct related to this dispute. These examples include some particularly egrious examples of WP:BITE. Judging by the discussion on the article talk page, I think we have some of the most clear examples of non-NPOV editing I've ever seen in WP. If the Committee accepts this case, I will help present evidence, because it appears to be extremely voluminous. Cla68 (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by marginally involved EvergreenFirJust commenting to urge arbcom to take this case now. On the previous request a couple weeks ago I urged the committee to wait. And wait they did. Not much has come of the WP:GS/GG. I think it's time for arbcom to step in. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC) I'll echo a comment above:
Statement by still uninvolved HasteurPlease see User:Hasteur/GG 3 Statement since the "committee" is harassing me about being at 861 words of germane to the case request and not the wide sweeping screeds. I challenge that the committee's "rule" about 500 words (especially in light of the SPA nature of this case request) puts those editors who are trying to respond to the committee (and other statements) as something that IAR should have been applied to. Hasteur (talk) 23:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by (uninvolved) DesineHi guys! You might want a heads-up that someone's trying to kick up a mob on 8chan to smear anyone and everyone involved in this Arbcom. They're actively trying to doxx people, so I'm not going to link it, but I'd be happy to offer links/archives to trusted parties if necessary. - Desine (talk) 04:43, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Mr. RandomRegarding the 8chan mob: the only doxxing I see in the thread is the mentioning of one editor's name (it's unclear to me whose) in the context of evidence of an editing COI. Their primary objectives seem to be to collect evidence of editor misconduct related to the article (which quickly devolved into general smearing among some of them), and to find pro-GG sources for the article itself. Still, given the mob's instability, we should be ready for anything they might do, so to speak. There seems to be an edit war here over whether Jimbo Wales is involved. Finally, regarding the case itself: in light of what A Quest For Knowledge just brought up (i.e., an uncalled-for and unusually well-coordinated discussion shutdown, tag removal, and page locking), I must strongly encourage ArbCom to take this case. Random the Scrambled (?) 15:38, 12 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by HalfhatThe problemss with this article are complex and numerous, there are NPOV issues that need worked on (particularly on the intro), however they seem to be argued over almost exclusively making up the bulk of the talk page. There is a serious lack of attention to the over major issues with the page. These include the unjustifiable volume of opinion which has left the article at around 120kB which finally seems to be going down. Part of the problems I think also come from the highly polarizing nature of the topic, just about everyone here has some strong views, though I'm sure many will deny this, however there is clearly more going on. There's a bad habit of adding from every RS and a serious unwillingness to remove. HalfHat 09:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC) Another issue is the large volume of users attacking each other, this plagues both of the "sides" that have loosely formed, they usually go along the lines of agenda pushing and seldom have anything backing them beyond having opinions, the nature of the topic is highly polarizing, and so we all have our own biases, I think we need to accept this and move on instead of being so quick to accuse. HalfHat 09:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC) @SirFozzie What evidence do you have to back up your conspiracy theory? HalfHat 09:49, 10 November 2014 (UTC) For the record I'm not sure what should be done, I'm just trying to share my understanding of the situation since I've been pretty involved. HalfHat 09:00, 11 November 2014 (UTC) @Fut.Perf. What are you suggesting, guilty until proven innocent for new users? Totally against assume good faith and don't bite the n00bs, which is part of one of the five pillars. Mass bans without researching goes directly against what Wikipedia stands for. I'm still not sure what is the best idea, but I can't help find how strongly certain users are against this a bit odd. HalfHat 09:48, 13 November 2014 (UTC) I'd like to bring up a recent action by Dreadstar that I find rather odd, and I think is worth looking at. Basically he told me to stop making references to Hitler. The thing is all I was doing is referring to the Wikipedia article on Adolph Hitler to make a point, which to my knowledge has never actually been addressed. The reason I (and I'd guess others) make references to the Hitler article is because it's a well written article on a very controversial topic where nonfringe sources have strong opinions. I was simply making the argument that if all sources share an opinion we shouldn't agree in Wikipedia's voice. Like I said trying to stop references not to Hitler himself but to the Wikipedia article just seems a bit to me. HalfHat 09:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC) Here are the diffs https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHalfhat&diff=635482043&oldid=635152453 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AGamergate_controversy&diff=635481687&oldid=635481421 Statement by Silver serenIn the interest of keeping the reading of this short, i'll just upfront state my opinion, since it's quite possible the rest of my comment will be long. Thus, in short, Arbcom should NOT accept this case. This article topic is basically an issue involving a dedicated group of Fringe people (the supporters that make up the Gamergate group) pushing for an article that reflects their POV, rather than neutrality or reliable sources. Considering the ongoing harassment campaign against dozens of people by this group, it is unsurprising that they are also wishing to control the narrative of the Wikipedia article on the topic of their group. They are similar to any other fringe group, whether speaking of pseudoscience or subjects related to sects of things in religion or political ideology. Several of the individuals that have made statements above are clear and known supporters of this Gamergate subject group. As you'd expect, there are a lot of SPAs involved. And then there are several others, which I will name Masem as one, that are trying to be good Wikipedians, but are pushing the point of neutrality to a fault. In a manner like what a lot of news media does, they are assuming that since there is more than one side involved, that the sides are equal and should be given equal weight. In this vociferous attempt to be neutral, they are essentially advocating for a violation of WP:DUE WEIGHT and against the very point of FRINGE existing. Also, a side note of what exactly Wikipedia as a whole is dealing with in regards to this group and which several others have noted above, there are a number of threads within the Gamergate areas that currently are watching this very Arbcom request and say things such as, and I quote, "DIG UP ALL INFO POSSIBLE ON Ryulong, NorthBySouthBarnoff, TarainDC, and TheRedPenofDoom." So, in addition to dealing with rampant meatpuppetry, there are also concerns regarding harassment and WP:GAMING. Please take all of this into account. It is for all the above reasons that I suggest that Arbcom does not take this case. The article is already being administered properly, following the policy and guideline rules of reliable sources, neutrality, due weight, and consensus among editors. The involvement of Arbcom at this junction would only serve to make the overall situation more chaotic and would only produce heat and no light at all. Thank you for your time. SilverserenC 09:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by SirFozzieHere we go again. My statement last time (that people outside Wikipedia are attempting to use the "Death by a Thousand Cuts" technique to force editors out of the area, to give their SPA/POV warriors a chance to slant the article to their preferred version... think that's pretty much came true, huh? Dunno how it's solveable, it's against "Wikipedia's code" to restrict SPA's based on what they MIGHT do, but it's just a wave upon wave of attacks, hoping to "break the dam" through erosion. SirFozzie (talk) 09:39, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Cs_californiaI have been on Wikipedia for a while and made one to two NPOV edits on this page. On 28 September 2014 I added a sentence with reference on one of issues regarding corruption involving EA games. On October 22, 2014 a message was sent to me about an administrator board message from User:Ryulong. I, along with some fifteen users were wrongfully accused of being "Pro-gamergate" per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive265#Nip Gamergate in the bud and was requested to be banned from the page for POV pushing and editing pages such as " (Anita Sarkeesian, Video game journalism, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, etc.) ", which I have never edited. I only added 2 sentences and was automatically assigned an alignment to a certain side. After reviewing some talk pages it seems like User:Ryulong is pushing a POV agenda including:
Per comments about 8chan: I do not know what that website is nor do I use it. As for the dig up everything comment. If there was no proof of anything negative there would be nothing for them to find. Only administrative bureaucrats can delete personal information or items from history. -Cs california (talk) 10:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by AvonoI will be agreeing with Cla68 and Masem, imho the biggest problem with the gamergate talkpage is that is it overly hostile for uninvolved /new users to get involved in by a set of problematic users who have clearly shown that there are not impartial (Wales telling both Tarc & Ryulong to stop editing the page ([1],[2]) . At the current time it is not worth the effort to solve the article’s npov issues because of that group of people who seem to think that they “own” ("35,5 % of all edits are done by Ryulong & NorthBySouthBarnof") the article. @Silver seren:: the exact quote is "ITS IN ARBCOM GUYS. ARB. FUCKING. COM. (or at least a request). DIG UP ALL INFO POSSIBLE ON Ryulong, NorthBySouthBarnoff, TarainDC, and TheRedPenofDoom. Wiki related, we don't need twitter/tumblr/etc shit unless its related.",so please don't take quotes out of context. Users are accountable for their own actions therefore your second last argument about possible harassment is invalid. Avono (talk) 11:31 am, Today (UTC+1) updated at Avono (talk) 14:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by User:Thargor OrlandoPlease refer to my original comment, not much has changed. I'm completely in Cla68's boat in which the behavior of what, for the purposes of this filing, would be called "anti-GG" editors have fostered a climate where editing in the area for uninvolved editors is not worth the energy or fear of being blocked.
Statement by uninvolved LizI'm glad to see that this page is semi-protected. It's alarming to see threads like this (https://8chan.co/gg/res/471658.html and http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2ltg1a/this_is_really_important_top_wikipedia_admins_are/) on 8chan and reddit basically trying to rally the troops to influence these proceedings and "dig up information" on some of the participants (specifically Ryulong, NorthBySouthBarnoff, TarainDC and TheRedPenofDoom) . I know off-wiki activity is generally not considered but this seems especially targeted to influence any decision-making. I hope that ARBCOM considers the arguments of people actually involved with editing articles concerning this subject and not uninvolved editors (myself included). Liz Read! Talk! 13:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
Statement by AkesgerothI have rewritten my statement to follow the 500 words rule. Anyone wishing to review the original statement when the involved parties begin pretending that I do not address some issues (or simply wishing for more information) can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Akesgeroth#Statement_by_Akesgeroth The continued contributions of four Wikipedia users (Ryulong, Tarc, TheRedPenOfDoom and NorthBySouthBaranof), referred to as The Four from here on out, combined with the tacit support of certain administrators acting as proxies for them threatens Wikipedia's integrity to an unacceptable point which will not be fixed without arbitration because of the involved party's continued abusive behavior and clear lack of remorse. They are not acting in good faith and are acting with the protection of certain administrators to edit politically sensitive topics and push their own narratives, making arbitration necessary to preserve Wikipedia's image. Here is a long, yet by no means complete, list of abuses committed by The Four: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Akesgeroth#Evidence In summary, The Four have repeatedly rejected any evidence supporting the “ethics in gaming journalism” perspective, present their own evidence as neutral when it clearly isn't and hide behind the longevity of their accounts, the number (rather than the value) of their contributions to Wikipedia and flawed regulations rather than cooperate with other users in writing a neutral article. Furthermore, they viciously attack users trying to participate reasonably in the discussion, from veiled threats of administrative action on their talk page to outright editing what their opponents said. So, considering the massive body of evidence of abuse from The Four, their obvious unwillingness to cooperate in the writing of a neutral article, their protection by users with administrative powers, the massive amount of reliable sources provided showing the misogyny perspective being denied, it is obvious that this issue will not be solved by anything short of arbitration and so strongly suggest that the request be accepted. The Gamergate controversy article needs to be either rewritten or deleted (and kept deleted) until the events are over, The Four need to be blocked from editing it or any politically charged topic in the future and administrators who acted as proxies need to be demoted. As spoken by Akesgeroth (talk) 00:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by A Quest for Knowledge
On second thought, perhaps ArbCom should take a limited case after what just happened at AN/I. Tarc violated his topic ban by opening this thread. Despite the facts that a) numerous uninvolved editors (such as myself) said that the tag should remain until the NPOV issues are resolved and b) the article talk page is filled with ongoing discussions of the article's NPOV problems, Mdann52 closed the thread bizarrely claiming (and I quote) "No ongoing discussion, so tag removed per consensus below."[6] TheRedPenOfDoom then removes the NPOV tag[7] and 18 minutes later, instead of reverting an obvious bad close, Future Perfect locks the article. Now, perhaps the timing is purely coincidental, but given the accusation that admins have been favoring one side, perhaps ArbCom should open a limited case to examine whether admins have been enforcing community sanctions in a fair, even-handed fashion. If the accusation that admins have indeed been biased in their application of community sanctions, then the community sanctions will clearly fail. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:39, 12 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by JehochmanSalvio, please stay on the fence; Newyorkbrad needs somebody to keep him company. :-D I think you could hear the case as long as you prune the list of parties to remove the neutral admins who are enforcing the community sanction. I think there should be a motion to confirm that those sanctions are in effect, and that this filing does not stop them from operating, nor does it interfere with their enforcement. To do otherwise would encourage gaming the rules. Also, if you find the accusations are baseless, you should consider sanctioning the requesting party(ies) to discourage the use of Arbitration as a form of SLAPP. Jehochman Talk 21:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by Robert McClenonIn the previous Request for Arbitration concerning Gamergate controversy, I asked what the filing party and supporters were asking the ArbCom to do, and in particular why the community general sanctions would not be the appropriate remedy. Failing a statement by the filing party and supporters, I said that the ArbCom should decline to take the case. Now I strongly suggest that the ArbCom accept the case. I will explain why. The primary reason is that there are certain editors whom the community cannot deal with effectively, and they are editors who polarize the community because they have both strong supporters and strong opponents. They include habitually uncivil editors who have a reputation as “excellent content creators”. It now appears that the editors who are called The Five are another class of editors who polarize the community. I make that statement without saying that they are right or that they are wrong, only that the community cannot deal with editors who polarize the community. The ArbCom can deal with editors who polarize the community. If the ArbCom finds that the principal “anti-Gamergate” editors have been engaging in ownership and battleground editing of the Gamergate article, it can impose sanctions on them. If the ArbCom finds that the principal “anti-Gamergate” editors have not engaged in sanctionable behavior, then any persistence in that claim will become a sanctionable personal attack by the critics. Either the principal “anti-Gamergate” editors deserve to be sanctioned, or they deserve to be vindicated, rather than constantly attacked by other editors. A secondary reason is that, due to the excessive level of threats of doxing and claims of doxing, it may be necessary to consider evidence involving actual identity information that is only permitted for highly trusted functionaries such as the arbitrators. Because one of the limits of the community process is that the community cannot deal with editors who polarize the community, I ask that the ArbCom now accept this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:15, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Statement by Volunteer MarekWhatever you do (pass a motion, lock it down, empower some discretionary sanctions) DON'T accept this case. That will make sure that this issue remains unresolved for at least Statement by Dave Dial(DD2K)It's unbelievable to me that a few contentious editors(TDA, Tutelary, Cla68) aided by an admin(Masem) who claims to be neutral(which it is painfully obvious he is not) can cause such a shit storm. ArbCom has allowed this to go on for far too long, and if you don't have the guts to make the tough decisions, then resign. Masem, TDA and the rest have allowed articles and their Talk pages related to 'gamergate' to be disrupted by SPAs over and over and over. With the dozens of links known to the committee from outside sites driving this fiasco, what the Hell are you waiting for? Many of you seem all too eager to take the DP case below, and in fact desysop him at the drop of a hat wit no cause. Yet sit on your collective hands as this stupid shit spirals into the mess it is now. You all should be ashamed that editors at the article and their Talk pages have been bombarded by SPAs and shit stirrers, Masem aids and abets, and the cycle goes on and on, and ArbCom kicks the can down the road. Dave Dial (talk) 02:02, 11 November 2014 (UTC) @User:Masem - You can bet that links will be provided if this case is accepted. For now, all anyone has to do is look at your contributions on the article and the Talk page. And your tactics are pretty well summed up on the most recent ANI episode. You have consistently and unrelentingly made long time editors jump through hoops to keep out reliably sourced material from mainstream outlets, and have accepted and tried to insert fringe material from SPAs. Over and over and over. Your claim of neutrality is laughable. Dave Dial (talk) 19:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC) I just want to add that despite my harsh wording, I respect people who have the fortitude to serve on the committee. Saying that, I think a simple way to solve this case is to give out several topic bans of anything related to women or feminism(broadly construed) and then set the gamergate article, its Talk page, and all related pages(broadly construed) to "pending changes" protection. For 6 months. Inform the admins over at the Reviewer Rights to not give the right out to new accounts. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 15:31, 19 November 2014 (UTC) Adding that it looks like overwhelming the project is working just fine for the 8chan gamergate trolls. As long time editors and helpers of the project get burnt out, we are left with fewer and fewer good editors helping the project, and more and more trolling for POV and "lulz". Good job, Jimbo. Dave Dial (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by uninvolved John CarterI suggest the case be taken as per Salvio's comments below. If this is, as he says, the third time that a request for action on this topic has been made in the past couple of weeks, there is some clear evidence that at least some individuals are trying to avoid talking to each other and instead talking to ArbCom to start a case. Collective beating on a dead horse can I suppose sometimes in itself be grounds for arbitration action, if there seems to be a rather longish line of people holding sticks waiting to relieve each other as the earlier corpse abusers get blocked, finally get some sleep, etc. John Carter (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by ProtonkIt seems we may accept this case. If we do, I recommend two things:
Be prepared to deal with bullshit and don't waste your time or ours. Protonk (talk) 16:39, 14 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by Rich Farmbrough (GG)This is always going to be a difficult area, until the text-books are written about it. The polarising nature of the debate ensures that the majority of people, which includes many of us, believe that they are NPOV on the subject, while actually taking either one side or the other. The normal recourse to RS is difficult, because one side of the dispute is (at least to some extent) the people who normally write the RS. Thus it is not surprising that there is conflict. Nonetheless there is common ground even among those most affected by the dispute, for example the guy that runs 8Chan was interviewed recently and condemned the treatment of Quinn, Quinn was also interviewed recently and said some nice things about gamers in general. While of course the trolling on both sides continues, the people who actually matter are acting like real human beings. I see great efforts being made on talk pages to reach consensus, but I also see edit warring and intransigence. It is up to the community to develop a modus vivendi to deal with these issues. In the event that ArbCOm can be part of that solution by lowering the temperature and perhaps pace, then am Arbcom case could be a good thing. Blocking can be left I think to AN/I, if editors adopt a battleground mentality, or edit war. Statement by PudeoThe administrative actions of Dreadstar have been peculiar here. In particular, this this 3RR report concerning 12 reverts in 24 hours was closed as no action by Dreadstar because it was stale 15 hours later. The adminstrator in question often arrives to do clutch decisions that seem to be completely one-sided to me. Dreadstar also closed the ANI thread mentioned in TDA's statement, again of course the people who are for the "anti"-POV (Ryulong et. al.) got off the hook. The Gamergate talk page and edit notes have had horrendous language, usually from Ruylong and Tarc (scanning for the word "fuck" may give a quick idea), but they have never been admonished as even the ANI was quickly closed by Dreadstar. One view referenced in the article itself is that the Gamergate controversy is a "culture war" (feminism/anti-feminism). This in my opinion explains why "uninvolved" admins as well can have plenty of external motives to act in a partisan way. It's definitely not a good thing if such cliques form in the admin corps. --Pudeo' 01:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by AuerbachKellerRyulong made a problematic BLP edit referencing me as chronicled on the Gamergate:Talk page. When I politely requested that he not cite me in the future due to this incident, he accused me in multiple places on WP of threatening him: On my own talk page and on the Gamergate talk page He is now telling Drmies to revoke my confirmed status and to tell me to stay away from him (Ryulong). Ryulong's behavior appears to be a WP:CONDUCT violation on the grounds of civility at the very least. I hope this issue will be addressed. Auerbachkeller (talk) 19:36, 15 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by Tony SidawayI think this is working, and I hope more admins will get involved in enforcement. Editing on the talk page has really stabilised over the past three days and progress is being made on the draft since the main article was put under full protection. Editors with different opinions are reaching consensus on major issues of content and structure in this admittedly imperfect article. I'm trying to direct conduct issues (some of which are admittedly severe) towards dispute resolution in user talk pages as the like, and this will work if given a chance. I'm not encountering any serious opposition. Keep this open for a few more weeks, perhaps. This topic is time sensitive, ephemeral. Consensus is coalescing as reliable sources grow in unanimity. There may be a case for community action on some disputes, and in some cases a 2004-style summary motion may help. The admins are still timid. Perhaps a motion encouraging them to take action is in order. Update 21:52, 19 November 2014 (UTC). I'm unhappy with the apparent existence of a rather ugly external campaign. I'm stepping away from Wikipedia for a while. I now think arbitration is inevitable though I'm uncertain what it can achieve in the circumstances. Good luck, and please make sure you lock down the arbitration mailing lists. Statement by previously involved IP user (74.12.93.242)I am making a new statement as my first was rejected as too long. Let me preface this by noting that I find the prejudice against so-called "SPA"s here mind-boggling. Every account is, by definition, an SPA the moment the first edit is made. It's unreasonable to expect new users to begin work on multiple articles simultaneously, and not devote special attention to any of them - especially if that user then gets dragged into WP:BRD. But what really irritates me about the current situation is all the double standards. Claims about "obvious SPAs and POV pushers who have been filling the talk page with rambling, evidence-free arguments... [and] unsupported claims of "bias!!!!" are made here unironically, without citing the evidence of POV-pushing, and in spite of other statements that exhaustively cite the claims of bias on the part of User:TaraInDC and others. Meanwhile, when a small team of like-minded editors are responsible for a huge percentage of the edits to both the page itself and the talk page, they seem somehow immune to accusations of WP:OWN and WP:TAGTEAM. The same editors claim a "consensus" against the WP:NPOV tag on the article, and then say "consensus is not a vote" when basically everyone else objects. Accusing admins etc. of being SPAs and pushing for them to be banned somehow doesn't WP:BOOMERANG on some, while relatively minor issues do on others. Some accounts get sanctioned for 3RR, while others get away with 15RR. I get chastised for WP:BLP when I try to explain what Gjoni actually said on the talk page, while other editors apparently get to misrepresent the sources and make false allegations against Gjoni in the actual article content (1, 2). I see complaints about WP:GAMING by people who are trying to figure out how to make a case that will actually stick, after all the flagrant violations that have been ignored due to what looks like blatant WP:GAMING to those individuals. They're condemned for "organizing offsite" to figure this out - even though editors are supposedly allowed to do/say what they want off of Wikipedia in general, and complain loudly when those actions are cited as evidence of bias. (Most of the above is a synthesis of other users' statements and my observation thereof. Please let me know if you feel any additional citations are necessary.) Per comments User:Ryulong made in previous ANI action, it seems he considers himself qualified to judge his own lack of bias. He also promised there: "I will keep away more than the 48 hours it took for me to get bored sitting in Hong Kong airport with nothing to do for 5 hours." That was on October 23, and as far as I can tell from the revision history, this did not happen. I point this out for the benefit of those who have been counselling Ryulong to calm down and step away for a bit (Robert McClenon; Jimbo Wales). 74.12.93.242 (talk) 13:01, 17 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by very marginally involved user xaosfluxI am only involved if the use of the PC2 protection level as an WP:IAR action in violation of the protection policy as an extraordinary measure is being addressed by arbcom. I participated in and endorsed Cuchullain's use of PC2 on the Zoe Quinn article as an extraordinary control. This was endorsed on WP:RFPP as well. — xaosflux Talk 03:01, 16 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by KurtisI urge the Arbitration Committee to accept this case. Gamergate has become a spiraling cesspool of vitriol, the likes of which I've never seen before. This isn't just a bunch of fringe theorists trying to use dispute resolution as a means of pushing an agenda; this is one of the nastiest disputes in the history of Wikipedia. The two sides have stooped to casting vile aspersions against one another, poisoning the entire atmosphere of the main article and related pages. This has spilled onto ANI, AN3, and elsewhere on an almost daily basis. At the very least, something must be done to stem the tide of aggression, because it's making collaborative editing virtually impossible. We cannot sweep this thing under the rug any longer, because it will only fester until we're looking at a mess of gargantuan proportions. Kurtis (talk) 06:27, 16 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by previously involved BosstopherI'd like to reiterate the points I made here. The article is a scary place where everyone is too suspicious of each other to act collaboratively, or view any suggestions made by editors they dislike as legitimate. Everyone's convinced the other side's out to get them, and as a result of this are out to get the other side, so by the end of it regardless of initial intentions it becomes ultimately impossible to edit this article without giving into (a worryingly justified) paranoia. Over the course of this article being edited, two editors have been doxxed. The reaction to this doxxing was one of little sympathy.[8][9][10][11][12][13] Another editor of the article has had to turn his twitter to private, due to the harassment he has received for his editing. And as a lot of the other statements mention 8chan is now trying to dig up dirt on the people they dislike. Further adding to atmosphere of suspicion are the actions of editors such as Loganmac. Loganmac has been broadcasting the conversations of the Gamergate controversy talk page through twitter and the subreddit KotakuInAction. There is of course nothing wrong with doing this alone, other editors like Tarc and TheDevilsAdvocate have also broadcasted their editing sagas and contacted those embroiled in the controversy. However in both their cases they have acted to clear up confusion regarding the article, tried to explain why it is how it is, and have apologized and clarified when they have made factual errors. Loganmac has now spread false information about other editors through KotakuinAction, at least twice now. In both cases he has refused to clarify the incorrect information he was spreading. He has also lied about these events on wiki claiming Ryulong was stalking his twitter and reddit accounts when in reality (as evident in the very diff Logan cited) I, who track both the twitter hashtag and KiA out of interest in the controversy, brought the posts to his attention. Logan has been acting to heavily inflame the situation. As a result of events like the ones I have described above, people editing this article do not trust each other. Including this hilarious ANI, in which Ryulong accuses an admin of being an SPA that's out to get him, and accuses me of "solely [using] Wikipedia to push the "pro-Gamergate" agenda," a somewhat cynical claim given that in two of the few times we interacted in our editing, I was pushing for the inclusion of material that could be considered Anti-GG, and defending the article from a pro-GG POV pusher (dont know how to link deleted diffs, but it's from 22:51 26/09). Similarly Ryulong assumed when Willhesucceed posted an article highlighting misogyny and abuse in Gamergate, that he had done the exact opposite. In conclusion everything is dreadful and there's probably no way to fix it. Good luck Arbcom! Also sorry for mostly focusing on you, Ryulong and Loganmac, your actions were those that remained the freshest in my mind. Statement by SookenonNot much to say, except maybe to bring this to your attention. Maybe it's just me, but I have a VEEEEEEERRRRRY good feeling that you gents on the Arbitration Committee might want to take a look at this: https://twitter.com/milky_candy/status/531771040444461056 https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FCase Sookenon (talk) 23:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by HustlecatHi all, I have been following the constellation of editors, articles and complaints on this subject for a couple months now, while trying to keep my input minimal. I have briefly offered my opinion previously and would like to do so now. This issue brings to mind the gender gap (particularly in tech). However, rather than being driven solely by inaction, entrenched attitudes, and the status quo, this involves overt threats and harassment of female developers, writers, and social scientists interested in video games. That is, there are people actively working against the equal treatment of women in a popular modern art form/tech product (regardless of whether they understand it that way). This is scary to those who support an end to gender discrimination. I mentioned previously [14] that this is similar to other "culture war" issues, in that it is exploitative of false balance to tilt the discussion in the desired direction even when facts say otherwise. I think the fourth and last paragraphs of Hasteur's now-moved comments and replies shed light on how this is happening here. I want to address the issue of the targeted editors. Many of the complaints about their behavior are bald-faced attempts to enrage from their ideological opponents. A couple complaints resulted in justified warnings. However, I consider the warned behavior to be defensible, and not surprising, as they are being hounded by both external harassment and on-wiki "sea lioning". It is a testament to their dedication to policy and accuracy that they have kept their cool to the extent that they have while under fire. Those targeted are doing good work in the topic area; it may look like WP:TAGTEAM and WP:OWN because there are very real threats of "doxxing" and harassment for potential newcomers who effectively contribute in ways that opponents dislike. (I'll admit that that is why I haven't gotten deeply involved.) However, editors who will champion the RSes and boldly advocate for an article that represents reality (and respond to those relentlessly and baselessly attacking RSes) are necessary for a good article. I believe the targeted users' contributions should not be undervalued due to behavioral blips (I have Ryulong and Tarc in mind here, although I'm seeing others begin to lose patience and slip- exactly what their opponents want). This is not meant as an apology for bad behavior; I mean that those who have been targeted for following policy are understandably defensive. Uninvolved users seem hesitant to come to their or the article's defense due to the potential threats both on-wiki (being reported repeatedly for overblown reasons) and off (threats, harassment). I don't think the targeted editors should be penalized for momentarily digging in their heels, losing civility, or forgetting to assume good faith amidst an onslaught of comments and edits that have often been baity [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20], repetitive [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28], and hostile to RSes [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] as well as standard policy [38] [39] [40]. Thanks for reading. --Hustlecat do it! 07:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Statement by ResoluteUninvolved, looking to stay that way. My comment, given the case appears to be on the verge of acceptance, is simple: This dispute is largely a battle between Neutral point of view, and Misogynistic point of view. And if there is one thing Gamergate has amply demonstrated, it is that there are a great many misogynists willing to harass and threaten all opposition into silence. So please, arbs, be careful that you don't become unwitting tools for their cause. Resolute 14:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by MarkBernsteinWith regard to the “Update” supplied a short time ago by @Loganmac: I have read the reddit thread cited there, and see no clear support for the allegation made in that paragraph that a specific editor is engaged in paid editing. In a regular talk page discussion, I would be inclined to delete such a comment as a probable WP:BLP issue, perhaps also nodding at WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, and WP:FORUM. Different standards apply here, of course, but do they extend this far? MarkBernstein (talk) 16:42, 19 November 2014 (UTC) Update: in light of off-wiki efforts to inquire into Ryulong’s sexuality, address, and religious affiliation -- efforts which appear to be coordinated with a campaign to convince Arbcom to accept this case -- I urge the committee to take special care before rewarding behavior that now considerably exceeds forum shopping. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:59, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
In the course of a discussion at AN/I, I was requested to forward information to ArbCom by email concerning off-site denigration of User:Ryulong. I have complied with this request and offered further assistance if desired. I have not received any thanks, which I confess is strange, as I am not a party to any dispute concerning User:Ryulong. Having seen the off-wiki disparagement, however, I can say that Wikipedia owes a substantial debt to User:Ryulong and ought to make an effort, public or private, to repair the harm that has been done. In view of the its inexcusable behavior toward the victims of GamerGate, I can no longer support Wikipedia and will no longer contribute to it. In the event that ArbCom or others with to contact me, information can be found on my user page. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC) Statement by uninvolved ObsidiI have mostly stayed out of the gamergate controversy (I don't think I edited on the page or its talk page at all). I have no opinion on the content issues, but have occasionally commented at WP:AN or WP:ANI on various admin actions taken. During the review of the gamergate situation, I would request that the committee review the gamergate topic ban:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Appeal_of_30_day_topic_ban. To me this topic ban is HIGHLY unusual. It did not have to do with ANY edit to gamergate page, its talk page, or any related mainspace/talk page. Instead it is claimed that the user copied another editors userpage (that had all of two lines in it and no background/colors), and replaced that users attributes with their own. It is claimed that this was done to "mock" the other user, but I find this ridiculous, there was nothing that mocked anyone in that. And secondly it is claimed that they mocked this user because of gamergate, and that is why they are indef topic banned from gamergate. This is an abuse of the standard discretion given to administrators and should not be allowed. An appeal was filed and closed, but this committee has the responsibility of overseeing administrative actions. I ask that this topic ban be reviewed. --Obsidi (talk) 20:49, 25 November 2014 (UTC) There has been a few GG related AN/ANI requests lately, the committee may wish to consider some kind of preliminary injunction about those that have GG related admin requests/appeals during the time that the case is open. --Obsidi (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2014 (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.
Statement on the GamerGate caseThe Arbitration Committee has published a statement on the GamerGate case.
For Wikipedia to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, it is essential that the editing experience is civil. Wikipedia is a reference work, not a battlefield. In recent months, the atmosphere surrounding the Gamergate controversy article on the English Wikipedia has resembled the latter. This atmosphere has been disruptive to the experience for editors and was damaging to the English Wikipedia project as a whole. The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee accepted a case on user conduct in the Gamergate controversy article and related articles, including biographies of those related to the topic. Our preliminary decision found that many contributors were in violation of English Wikipedia policies on user conduct. The proposed decision imposes broad sanctions against a wide range of individuals, however this decision is subject to change, and proposed sanctions have not taken effect. These sanctions are intended to allow the restoration of normal editing processes to the topic area and facilitate constructive contributions. Our investigation and findings do not pass judgement on the content or quality of the articles in question. About the English Wikipedia Arbitration CommitteeThe Arbitration Committee deals with editor conduct on the English Wikipedia. Its members are volunteer editors elected by the Wikipedia community. The role of the Committee is to restore normal, amicable editing processes when those processes have been disrupted by disputes. It does so through hearing cases and issuing rulings, and when appropriate, removing disruptive parties. The mandate of the Arbitration Committee extends only to editor conduct. Wikipedia policies prohibit the Committee from making editorial decisions about article content. When deciding cases, the Committee does not rule on the content of articles, or make judgements on the personal views of parties to the case. Although sometimes described as Wikipedia’s Supreme Court by the press, the Committee applies Wikipedia policies and guidelines rather than legal principles. Preliminary findings regarding the GamerGate case under considerationThe Arbitration Committee is in the process of hearing a case on the conduct and interactions between editors contributing to the Gamergate controversy article and related pages. The Committee agreed to hear the case to examine user conduct and to attempt to reduce the level of disruption around the topic on Wikipedia. There have been a number of articles about this case in the press of late, some of which mischaracterise the Committee, its process, and outcomes of this case. We would like to clarify the Committee’s purpose, process, and preliminary findings. The two primary issues in the case at hand are the behaviour of editors as they have engaged in the development of the Gamergate controversy article, and the application of the Wikipedia policy of neutral point of view. Status of the decisionLast Monday (19 January 2015), a subset of Committee members posted a proposed decision on the case. This proposal was not a final decision. For each case it hears, the Arbitration Committee selects drafting arbitrators: several members of the Committee who, often with input from the rest of the Committee, review the evidence presented and offer preliminary findings. Once the proposed decision has been posted, other Committee members are invited to add additional findings and remedies, and edit existing ones. The proposal may be reworked or revised, and new measures may be voted on. If there is a consensus among committee members, the preliminary decision may be restructured entirely. Sanctions in the proposed decision do not take effect until the Arbitration Committee votes to close the case, at which point the passing principles, findings, and remedies are posted in the final decision section. Contrary to what has been reported, the Arbitration Committee frequently hears and approves appeals of sanctions and other remedies when they are found to no longer be necessary. Findings on editor conductFrom the creation of the Gamergate controversy article, many Wikipedia editors have held differing views about how the controversy should best be represented. These discussions grew increasingly heated, and certain editors were identified for potentially violating established English Wikipedia conduct policies, as defined by the broader editor community. The Arbitration Committee agreed to hear the case to attempt to reduce the level of disruption in the topic. The Committee’s preliminary findings have been represented in some media stories as targeting feminist editors and attempting to prevent their contributions to gender-related topics. This is inaccurate. The findings of the Arbitration Committee deal exclusively with the documented conduct of editors on the English Wikipedia. They do not consider editor opinion, identity, affiliation, or beliefs, nor do they take into consideration an editor’s actions or affiliations outside of their participation on English Wikipedia, unless those actions are directly related to facilitating disruption on the encyclopedia. The Arbitration Committee does not and cannot take a stance on the content of articles, nor on broader issues such as the Gamergate controversy itself. An accurate characterization of the Arbitration Committee’s preliminary decision is as follows. The Committee found that editors on various sides of the discussion violated community policies and guidelines on conduct. The Committee’s preliminary decision currently includes broad recommendations for, and endorsements of, community sanctions and topic bans for editors on various sides of the dispute. These include:
The current majorities on the proposed decision are not in favour of banning any editors from Wikipedia. Neutral point of viewThe Arbitration Committee does not address the content of Wikipedia articles. As such, the preliminary decision by the Committee is not a referendum on the content, perspective, or neutrality of the Gamergate controversy article. The Committee does not endorse or censure the content in the article in question. However, the Committee understands that the editor conduct issues under review are related to efforts by those with conflicting opinions of the topics relating to the Gamergate controversy article to influence the content of related Wikipedia articles. The English Wikipedia has robust policies and guidelines designed to address precisely such situations. The preliminary findings of the Committee reiterate the existence and importance of these existing policies and guidelines, and invite the participation of neutral editors and administrators in the maintenance and development of the articles in question. These include:
Please direct press enquiries about this case to the Arbitration Committee via email. For the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that hosts and supports the projects of the Wikimedia movement, see their press room. For the Arbitration Committee, LFaraone 03:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC) Amendment request: GamerGate (February 2015)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. Initiated by GoldenRing at 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by GoldenRingThe effect of this amendment would be to add MarkBernstein to the list of editors whose TBANs imposed under the community general sanctions are converted to arbitration-imposed TBANs under the standard topic ban. I believe it was an oversight of the committee not to do this in the first place. The reason that it happened is that most editors presenting evidence dropped sections concerning MarkBernstein when he was handed a community-imposed topic ban (eg [43], [44]). However, there is ample evidence available of personal attacks and treating Wikipedia as a battleground to add a separate finding of fact and support a separate remedy (eg [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59]) if the committee thinks that a more appropriate approach. The reason this has come up now is that Gamaliel has seen fit to remove MarkBernstein's topic ban. on the basis of private email discussions with him. This seems problematic for several reasons:
Lastly, my apologies if this matter was considered by the committee when coming to a decision. If this is the case, I will happily withdraw the request. As it stands, I can see no indication on the workshop or PD pages that it was considered, and several indications from other editors that they considered it moot because of the indefinite topic ban. GoldenRing (talk) 04:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC) @Gamaliel: To be clear, I named you as a party to this request solely as a courtesy, given your involvement, to invite exactly the sort of comment you have made. I had and have no intention that action would be taken against you regarding this and I do not intend it as an accusation of misconduct on your part. We obviously disagree in our assessment of Mark's editing, but if disagreement was misconduct then where would we be? GoldenRing (talk) 06:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC) @Johnuniq: I don't think that one discussion at Gamaliel's TP, in which I made five edits (not counting the ARCA notification) rises to the level of disruptive chipping away. If the committee disagrees, I will gladly accept a TBAN; I'm not exactly in the habit of bringing these things and don't want to be. I decided to bring this to ARCA rather than AE because I don't think the request fits the pattern of AE, as it requires consideration of what happened around the case itself. GoldenRing (talk) 07:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by MarkBernsteinGood grief! GoldenRing, greatly aggrieved,
Statement by GamalielI have already discussed at length with numerous editors my reasoning and my belief that Mark Bernstein has satisfied my concerns regarding the problematic behavior which caused me to impose the topic ban. I don't believe there is anything problematic with the way I handled the situation. I had extensive email discussions with Mark Bernstein regarding his behavior, how it would change, and what he would do if the sanction was lifted. This is routine. It would have been impossible to have that discussion on-wiki given the heated atmosphere here and the inevitable sniping that would occur. User:HJ Mitchell has topic banned one user from discussion of Mark Bernstein because he was following him around the encyclopedia criticizing him and trying to get him sanctioned, and likely more will follow. I disagree that this has the effect of "making an end-run around the arbitration case". Off the top of my head, I believe I indefinitely topic banned five users, and I think most of those before the case had started. At least two of those bans became indefinite Arbcom sanctions, so clearly the case provided ample time and opportunity to consider the behavior of any user sanctioned by me. It would be bad form to retroactively sanction a user well after the case was closed. The discretionary sanctions can easily be applied to any ongoing behavior problems from any user editing these articles. I find the evidence presented here does not warrant a retroactive sanction nor a discretionary one. As initially presented to me on my user talk page, they included the correction of another editor's typo as evidence of problematic behavior and the inaccurate claim that Mark Bernstein's discussion of anti-Semetic comments about him on Twitter was an attack on other Wikipedia editors labeling them anti-Semetic. Mark Bernstein is widely unpopular on Wikipedia due to his blog posts and the press coverage they have received, and he is even more unpopular on the less savory parts of the internet, who desperately want him sanctioned so they can add Mark Bernstein to their collection of Gamergate trophies and parade his severed head on a pike through the boards of 8Chan. I believe this particular request is sincere and made in good faith, but we can't ignore the context of the request. In this sort of atmosphere, where so many editors are utterly convinced of Mark Bernstein's perfidy and menace, otherwise well-meaning editors are likely to view even the most innocuous statements by him in the worst possible light, as is happening in this request. Gamaliel (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC) @GoldenRing: I didn't interpret your post here as a request for action or an accusation against myself, but I do appreciate your clarification. Gamaliel (talk) 06:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by JohnuniqI noticed the lengthy questioning of Gamaliel at his talk (permalink) and added my thoughts, including the suggestion that any evidence to show a topic ban would be warranted should be presented at WP:AE. As GoldenRing has instead chosen to involve Arbcom, my request is that some action be taken—if new evidence supports a topic ban against MarkBernstein, it should be imposed; otherwise, GoldenRing should be topic banned because the persistent chipping-away is disruptive. Johnuniq (talk) 06:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Yet another statement from Harry Mitchell!Gamaliel was within his rights to lift the topic ban. I wasn't privy to his conversations with Mark, but in my own email conversations I found Mark to be much more reasonable than he had been made out to be. We were able to reach a gentlemen's agreement that Mark would avoid personally directed comments and I commuted his block to time served, as is my prerogative as the blocking admin. Any fresh misconduct should be brought to AE with dated diffs and a concise explanation of the problem they show. Meanwhile, BLPs in the topic area are still subject to drive-by attacks from autoconfirmed accounts, so litigating over minor squabbles on talk pages seems to miss the point. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by StrongjamIt seems like an inordinate amount of attention is being paid to MarkBernstein's editing. As Bernstien's editing hasn't been disruptive since the TBAN has been lifted there isn't any need for Committee action. — Strongjam (talk) 15:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by coldacidGood grief. There may be nothing actionable in this ARCA request, but I'd be hard pressed to see anything but bad attitude out of Mr Bernstein's current behaviour on Wikipedia with regard to GG issues, even in this very ARCA request with his mocking poetry[76]. It's probably not necessary to point this out, but this doesn't seem to be the kind of behaviour that should be expected or encouraged of Wikipedia editors. I say trout MarkBernstein, warn GoldenRing, and just forget that this request ever happened. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 19:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by NewyorkbradIn response to Harry Mitchell's statement, I suggest that BLPs in this topic-area be placed on pending changes. This was done for a handful of them when I suggested it on the workshop during the case, but it sounds like it needs to be expanded. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Statement by BosstopherAs someone who has been very critical of Mark's action in the past, I think he's improved his behavior sufficiently for a topic ban to be unnecessary for the time being. While obviously a strongly opinionated person, he is no longer making unfounded attacks on other editors, and is instead taking the much more applaudable and rap battle-esque approach of rebutting their arguments in verse. I am now firmly of the opinion that all statements to Arbcom by involved parties should be written in verse, for the sake of fostering Wikilove, dispute resolution etc. So if we could have a motion declaring that, that would be great.Bosstopher (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by LizJust wanted to make the observation that looking at the sanctions log, at 2014 GG block log, not all topic bans issued were indefinite and some were just for a period of a week or a few months. Not all editors who were topic ban were included in the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate which clearly identified those editors whose topic bans were commuted into the standard topic ban. Liz Read! Talk! 22:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC) Statement by DHeywardBut then, just today, MarkBernstein does something to deserve this final warning. How many final warnings are there? Please at least log all these as previous sanctions so at least new admins know what they are dealing with. --DHeyward (talk) 20:58, 19 February 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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.
Clarification Request (March 2015)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. Initiated by MarkBernstein at 16:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC) List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Statement by MarkBernsteinOn Friday, March 6, Think Progress published an article by Lauren C. Williams on The ‘Five Horsemen’ Of Wikipedia Paid The Price For Getting Between Trolls And Their Victims. Two days later, I was topic-banned by @Dreadstar: under the standard AE sanctions, over his concerns regarding this discussion [77] of that article at the Gamergate talk page. I had requested clarification by email about the intended scope of the standard topic ban. Receiving no pertinent response, I asked on my talk page.
This evoked a vituperative response by email, which I believe to have been sent to you as well, and which is now being discussed at AN/I, which I believe is the appropriate forum. I do not wish to enquire further into that here. I do not believe the topic ban was proper, just, or expedient. I do not wish to enquire further into that in this place and at this time, though of course you may discuss whatever pleases you. The underlying question remains: an activist had contacted me that very day, seeking advice for a Wikipedia initiative among her membership and concerned -- not unreasonably -- over the sort of repercussions that were detailed in Think Progress and previously in a number of other newspapers and magazines [78]. Is it your intent that the standard Gamergate topic ban include pages relating to Campus Rape, which might conceivably be construed to be a controversy and arguably is related to gender? Administrator Masem makes an interesting proposal that the committee find that Campus Rape does not fall under the standard sanctions in general, but it does for me. DHeyward and Thargor Orlando apparently share this fascinating view. This is, of course, a bill of attainder, and is incompatible with the notion of the rule of law. My question addresses your intent in writing the decision you wrote. It's not clear to me that the assistance of third parties, involved or otherwise, is helpful for you to determine what you meant to say a scant six weeks ago. Nothing else is at issue here -- although now that the question has been raised so forcefully below, by such august Wikipedians, it might be useful to state whether Wikipedia policy applies alike to all, or whether it can be changed so flexibly to afflict our foes and benefit our pals.
Statement by BeauxlieuxI’m the editor who asked for MarkBernstein’s perspective on editing the Campus Rape page after reading about the Wikipedia GamerGate debacle. So let me weigh in but I also ask you to be kind: I am new here. I don’t know all the protocols, lingo, and history, and it is a bit intimidating. I'm not even sure where to put this comment so I apologize if I'm putting it in the wrong place. I had hoped, perhaps naively, to at least begin editing the Campus Rape page in obscurity. I’m a bit horrified that it has now become inextricably linked to GamerGate in Wikipedia. The Campus Rape page and sexual assault coverage in general need a lot of help. Many prominent researchers and organizations do not have pages, and coverage is skewed. I would love for some of the experienced editors in this discussion to help. I loudly echo In the case of Campus Rape, I think the letter, if not the spirit, of the sanction is unclear: Campus Rape is not a “gender-related dispute or controversy.” It is gender-related. That is clear. But, Campus Rape is not, in and of itself, a dispute or controversy. Rape is rape. Campus Rape is campus rape. There are, however, myriad disputes and controversies within the topic of Campus Rape. So, the ban might have have been better described as covering “any gender-related topic.” Such a ban would concede that gender-related topics will, most likely, end up having disputes and controversies, which given the gender imbalance issues that Wikipedia is confronting, seems, unfortunately, a fair assumption. There's a lot of time and energy being spent debating the boundaries of the sanction. But, there’s a bigger issue here. Do sanctions work? I don’t think so. In the IdeaLab I suggested an alternative resolution to sanctions: apology. I would welcome your feedback on it. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Require_Apologies Beauxlieux (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC) Thank you @Rhoark: for your offer to help. To clarify for @Cailil: and @Euryalus: -- I understand that I can edit. When I said that Campus Rape and GamerGate are now linked in Wikipedia, I just meant that for search, history, etc, this page now exists. I meant nothing more than that. Here's the chronology of events. After reading about GamerGate, I contacted @MarkBernstein: for his perspective. He generously offered to put Campus Rape on his watch list. Then, he got banned and asked for clarification. Why/how are @Squiggleslash:'s comments redacted? I thought they were really useful. Beauxlieux (talk) 21:15, 12 March 2015 (UTC) I am tempted to undo the redacting of @Squiggleslash:'s comments, but since they did it themselves, I don't think that would be appropriate. I will respect their wishes. The point that they and I were making (and that they made better than I at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FClarification_and_Amendment&diff=650931140&oldid=650930666 ) is that if arbcon or whoever's responsible thinks that campus rape should be included in the ban, then the better wording would be "gender-related topic." That wording is clearer and avoids the debate in which we unfortunately now find ourselves. Can the arbitrators, or whoever it is that is responsible, change the wording of the ban? I do think @MarkBernstein: had a legitimate point that the ban is unclear. While there is a way, as some have argued, that campus rape has become, unfortunately, controversial, there is also, and many survivors would fall into this camp, an understanding that campus rape is not at all controversial and that it is delegitimizing to survivors' experience to call campus rape "controversial." Both interpretations have been articulated in this debate already so I'm not going to repeat them. If wikipedia wants to be welcoming to women, then acknowledging the unfortunate reality of many women that rape is rape would be better than debating whether that reality is controversial or not. So, rather than continue the debate, why not sidestep it? The easy solution -- the solution with integrity -- is to change the wording of the ban. I would hope that whoever can make that happen, does. And, thank you in advance for doing it. Beauxlieux (talk) 21:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by BosstopherThis isn't actually related to what Mark's said, but it's such a minor and uncontroversial issue that I don't want to create a separate RCA for it. Apologies to Mark for partially hijacking his ARCA. ArmyLine's topic ban (despite what's incorrectly been written on the GG General sanctions page, was actually given under Arbcom's BLP discretionary sanctions. This means FoF13 is factually innaccurate, as is remedy 12. Could these be ammended to note that ArmyLine was banned under BLP discretionary sanctions, as opposed to GG general sanctions? Bosstopher (talk) 16:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by TheRedPenOfDoomGiven the overly broad topic area and the directive that it be "broadly construed", we were obviously going to be back here. This time around, I would hope that the ArbCom members carefully consider the actual ramifications of whether their actions are going to minimize disruption in the long term or will provide a blueprint for how outside canvassing can be used to disrupt Wikipedia to drive editors away. I hope that any support that comes their way in this dark hour will help them come up with a decision that is actually likely going to do the former while maintaining the basic principles of creating an encyclopedia that everyone, including women, can edit without fear of arbitrary sanctions.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
So the NFL [80] /] [81] and the US Marines [82] [83] the US Congress [84] [85] Saudi Arabia and Sweden [86] are obviously covered as well, since they have well documented controversies involving gender? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC) For "topic bans" it may or may not be as clear cut as people seem to think, but per @Courcelles: "If something is covered by the DS, it is covered for all editors equally, there can be no "this set of topics for editor X, and this set for everyone else"." so, as soon as anyone mentions "the NFL cover up of wife beating by players" the DS tag goes on the NFL talk page and people get their alerts? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:04, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Thargor OrlandoNot to speak for Dreadstar or the Arbs, but the topic ban, as written at MarkBernstein's talk page, is in part for "any gender-related dispute or controversy." This is an incredibly controversial topic anyway, and Mark's own intentions in this clarification is to drag the drama he continually creates within the Gamergate space into the campus rape disputes. The goal of the topic ban is to keep him away from inflaming these topics, not to try and drive him to other ones. I hope the arbs and admins here clarify that this article and his involvement would fall under the relevant sanctions, and perhaps extend this topic ban toward MarkBernstein indefinitely as it should have been back at the original ruling, as he has continually shown himself unable to collaborate constructively in the space due to his personal feelings on the relevant topics of Gamergate, feminism, and Wikipedia's governance. The continued allowance of MarkBernstein to disrupt the proceedings at the relevant articles is a problem that is in need of an overdue solution. Also, this continued spamming of his blog posts and the ThinkProgress blog post is becoming exhausting and self-promotional, and is arguably becoming an issue of a conflict of interests in and of themselves. Since we're here, it is worth a mention. We wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else. Statement by StrongjamClarification on the exact scope of the GG topic ban is needed. This isn't the first time this has been brought up, previously in the Spudt3r case this came up. Personally I feel the wording is too broad, but I appreciate that might of been intentional. — Strongjam (talk) 17:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by NorthBySouthBaranofThargor Orlando's statement appears to be yet another attempt to silence dissent and sweep this issue under the rug. It is hardly "spamming" to suggest that a significant media article be included in the In the Media section. The fact that the article is significantly critical of Wikipedia's processes and response to this issue derives the inevitable inference that Thargor's decision to engage in an edit war to remove it from the In the Media section is intended to cover up inconvenient truths. (I believe the usual term for that is Streisand effect.) While leveling accusations of a "conflict of interest," Thargor interestingly fails to note his own conflict of interest here, in that the article is critical of the position he has relentlessly pushed on-wiki. What he calls "drama" is no more and no less than a thoroughly-justified belief that the encyclopedia's own processes failed those who stood up to defend the project's basic principles from vicious, organized abuse. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by ForbiddenRocky"Broadly construed" really needs to be explained better for this topic. The categories listed for Gamergate controversy currently : Category:2014 controversies, Category:2014 in video gaming, Category:Conflict of interest, Category:Conspiracy theories, Category:Criticism of journalism, Category:Cyberbullying, Category:Women and video games, Category:Hashtags, Category:Internet activism, Category:Internet trolling, Category:Internet vigilantism, Category:Journalism ethics, Category:Video game controversies, Category:Video game journalism, Category:Sexual harassment, Category:Misogyny, Category:2015 in video gaming, Category:2015 controversies Does a Gamergate controversy topic ban include articles sharing these categories? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by MasemI would argue that Campus Rape would not fall under the GG general sanctions as IDed by ArbCom, for any other editor. But I will argue that in the specific case of Mark, who in the past has been quick to label editors as "rape apologists" tied to the GG situation ([87], [88] that this clearly shows a strong COI in the area, and that in this specific case for Mark should be an area to avoid, if even voluntarily. --MASEM (t) 19:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC) @Bishonen: The problem with " I hereby propose they be amended to support the efforts of editors who defend living people from slander, instead of thwarting and punishing these editors." is that from the GG arbcom case, there's a difference from enforcing BLP which is meant to prevent WP from introducing claims that are harmful to living person, and actively defending living persons to a point of taking a battleground attitude to anyone with a slightly contrary view, which several editors were doing during GG. We are not here to right wrongs, including when living persons are being negatively attacked off-site, as an an amoral work, we can't let that attitude that we have to defend them on WP override expected civility and consensus building. BLP is strong enough as it is (exempt from 3RR, strict admin actions for severe violations, etc.) that "defending" persons under BLP should not be done on WP. --MASEM (t) 01:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC) @DD2K: "if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently." absolutely not. In fact, there are articles that negatively call members of the brony fandom as creepy and approaching that, and those are in our article, but that's because they come from reliable sources and thus appropriate opinions to include to achieve neutrality. I know one can delve into far-less reliable sources and find more accusations, but just as we won't include accusations against BLP from weak RS for GG, we won't do that here, either.
Statement by (unrelated) coldacid
Campus rape is a touchy subject in gender issues and civil issues groups, and because of the spectrum of opinions and how vehemently holders of those opinions can be when they are challenged on them, I think it's safe to say that it would fall under the (i)(b) subclause of the Discretionary sanctions remedy. Whether or not the GG discretionary sanctions should include pages on the subject of campus rape is another issue altogether. Depending on the size and/or membership of the set of editors both active on pages regarding campus rape and those regarding GamerGate, it may or may not be worthwhile for the arbs to consider making an exception to the GG DS. Honestly I'm not interested in making that determination, nor suggestions towards it, but looking into that may be the way this request should go, if the arbs decide to take any action. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 19:56, 10 March 2015 (UTC) @ForbiddenRocky: I'd argue that yes, GG topic bans do include feminist topics, and I'd even posit that (i)(b) and (i)(c) exist to prevent the GamerGate battleground from spilling out into those topic areas. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC) @Masem: I'd love to know why you think that campus rape as a topic wouldn't fall under the sanctions. I agree that this is definitely an area that MarkBernstein should avoid, but unless I've been misreading something, somewhere, it seems pretty clear that campus rape would be covered under the areas included in the GG topic bans. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 01:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC) @Squiggleslash: A topic that is prone to raising controversies is by virtue of the frequency of those controversies, controversial itself. As I already mentioned in my reply to ForbiddenRocky, it seems obvious that topics such as campus rape were intentionally scoped into the discretionary sanctions clause for the GG case to avoid the behaviour from the GamerGate controversy article spilling out further into articles covering gender-related issues. I didn't participate in the GG case, but I did observe it; from those observations I drew the conclusion that the DS scope was intended to keep sanctioned editors from disrupting anything gender issues related. By the way, a look at your recent contributions, and especially this notice raises the question of whether or not you're back to actually contribute to Wikipedia. I hope the former, but that notice certainly implies the latter. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 15:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@Beauxlieux: Squiggleslash redacted their own comments, as (based on the change) they felt that their opinion was being misinterpreted. Squiggleslash's comments still remain in the history of the page, however, even if not visible in the ongoing ARCA request. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 23:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by DHeywardMArkBernstein's topic ban was for continuing to comment on contributors and not content. This was noted by two admins on his talk page and has been noted elsewhere. Notwithstanding his strawman argument about campus rape, of which I can find no substantial contribution by MarkBernstein, his topic ban has nothing to do with it. This is a canard put forth only to muddy the waters. MarkBernstein doesn't appear to be here to build the encyclopedia. --DHeyward (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by NE EntSince Campus rape references both "attitudes towards women" and Christian Hoff Sommers / gender feminism logically it would fall under the topic ban. NE Ent 23:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC) Beauxlieux's queryAnswered on their talk [90] NE Ent 00:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by Rich FarmbroughI am very concerned that we should not waste the talents of someone like MarkBernstein. While he apparently has trouble disengaging from personalities, or at least understanding how others might perceive what he writes, when working in areas about which he feels strongly, he has a wealth of expertise in the statistical field which can be very productive on Wikipedia. I don't see Campus rape as being the pacific topic which MarkBernstein hopes. There are fraught conversations about double jeopardy, the role of campus police, notable hoaxes, alleged rapists being "punished" by having to write an essay, how ill-suited campus committees are to understand even the mechanics ("I had to draw a diagram"), whether those who sue universities for wrongful punishment are "entitled", and on, and on. If this is covered by the sanction under which MarkBernstein finds himself, it is not an area where I would imagine there is any guarantee that the conflict would not recur, especially so soon after recent issues, so a special dispensation would probably be unwise. I would suggest that other areas such a medicine, climatology and pseudo-science might well benefit from MarkBernstein's statistical expertise. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC). Statement by CaililI (and frankly the reliable sources out there) see issues like campus rape (and a whole panoply of other gender issues that are given high profile in the media due to gender politics around them) fall into the category of gender related controversy. Furthermore Thryduulf's contribution to that AE case seems to me to have muddied waters here[91]. Issues like Campus Rape or Men's rights or feminism or Women's studies are always already about gender, and any controversy about them or if they are a controversy, puts them firmly into the range of the ARBGG AC/DS. If I'm wrong about this I'd welcome correction by Arbs because as it stands the ARBGG ruling seems very clear to me--Cailil talk 09:59, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Beauxlieux (talk · contribs) - It seems to me that you've been misinformed by Mark. Campus rape or other gender conflicts are not "inextricibly linked to Gamer Gate". What's happen on wikipedia in the past 3 years is that ArbCom have (finaly) started to deal with protracted conflicts on gender related controversies (Chealsea Manning being one, Abortion being another, and GG being the latest). The ruling does not prevent anyone new to wikipedia from editing Campus rape etc. What is under probation is editor behaviour. As long as people play by the rules and don't disrupt articles to make a point - they have nothing to worry about at all. Discretionary Sanctions are like special speed limits in an area that has high traffic, with cops on standby to enforce them - the only people banned from editing them are those topic banned under the gamer gate ruling because they have a s history of escalating disputes in gender related controversies--Cailil talk 12:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by uninvolved editor Squiggleslash(Redacted) Statement by RhoarkIt would be very difficult to make any contribution to an article on campus rape that would not in some way intersect the controversial matters of statistical prevalence, risk factors, perpetrator demographics, definition of consent, false accusation, due process, or proposed remedies. The whole article must be regarded as a gender-related controversy, and as such MarkBernstein should not be permitted to interact with it. Fortunately, Beauxlieux and her organization need not be uniquely dependent on MarkBernstein to accomplish their goals. I'm sure any member of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism, myself included, would be pleased to help them improve the encyclopedia. We shouldn't let them be used as a human shield against a justified topic ban, and they should consider themselves fortunate to be spared being weaponized for more pointy behavior. Rhoark (talk) 01:28, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Bishonen
Statement by {DD2K}
Absolutely disturbing. I have a strong inclination that if there were an organized group tying certain Bronys to pedophilia, and said brony people had Wikipedia articles that were being attacked with off-site organization, you would feel much differently. The same with some Arbs here, if the people being attacked weren't just some feminist women who act too big for their britches, the case would have looked much different. I don't know if it's the young age of some of the ArbCom members, or if they are just tone deaf. But when you compare the GGTF case and the GG case, it's absurd. Dave Dial (talk) 02:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC) @Masem: - Your response shows that my comment either went right over your head, or you are being purposely obtuse. In fact, this whole episode from start till know shows exactly how systemic bias works on Wikipedia. Regular, good editors are biased and cannot see their own biases. The absurdity of it all would be funny were it not for the consequences involved. Dave Dial (talk) 13:33, 13 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by Starship.paintCan we now wrap up and close this request, given that nine Arbs, a majority, have pretty much unanimously declared that campus rape is "related to gender and the subject of controversy", thus being within the standard GG topic ban? I'm not very aware of the procedures - what's next and who can close this? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 05:26, 15 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by {next person}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 case request or provide additional information. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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: GamerGate (March 2015)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. Initiated by Rhoark at 04:08, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Convert all existing restrictions under standard topic ban (I) or functionally identical to standard topic ban (I) to standard topic ban (II). Any uninvolved administrator may henceforth apply either standard topic ban I or II as a discretionary sanction, as seems most appropriate to prevent disruption.
Statement by RhoarkApologies if this request is improper in any way, but as an affected party I would like to request amendment to a sanction I believe is ineffective. The question of what constitutes a "gender-related dispute", and the continuing off-site attention to the matter is causing more disruption than I believe would result from a narrower topic ban on the affected individuals. Except for one of them, I doubt those that are not already indef blocked would actually disrupt other gender controversy pages due to sour grapes (especially after 3 months to cool off), so its mostly a WP:BEANS restriction. I've also heard it claimed the resulting off-site campaigning is further discouraging female participation in Wikipedia, which is a hot-button issue. I don't have firsthand knowledge of that. I share @TheRedPenOfDoom:'s concerns about setting a precedent of bending to campaigns organized off-wiki, but I think on the whole this will improve the collaborative editing environment. Rhoark (talk) 04:08, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
I've tossed the ball and will try to avoid too much of trying to steer it by blowing on it, but I'd like to share the analogy I brought up in the other thread: the more you squeeze a handful of sand, the faster it slips through your fingers. There are problems at the root of the misbehavior that are fixable, but not by doubling down on the same strategy. This is not, as some have suggested, evidence of incompetence or malice at arbcom, so trying a different tack need not be considered an admission of such. No one in history has ever dealt with quite the same situation. Rhoark (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC) I hope that tangential discussion of my editing history will not distract too much from the request for amendment. If anyone thinks it is a problem, please bring it to my talk page or a separate filing. I'm not upset by it, and make no demands upon Hipocrite in response to it. On the topic of the request, its natural to react to this as one would react to some reprobate trying to slip the terms of their ban and re-engage. I imagine the arbitrators see that a lot. This is something quite different. Comments supportive of this amendment have been from people quite independent of those sanctioned, and crossing the aisle with respect to the controversial area. Rhoark (talk) 21:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by NorthBySouthBaranofStatement by MarkBernsteinStatement by TKOP
Statement by TheRedPenOfDoom
Statement by coldacid@Thryduulf: My feeling on this is that it'll do nothing but promote further boundary testing. The rational part of me doesn't quite agree, but I'd certainly argue against converting the existing bans to the type II proposed above if it is added to the remedies. I'd say to Two kinds of pork's comment that I'm not entirely opposed to adding the additional topic ban scope, I'm just not sure if it'll actually result in the environment that Rhoark and TheRedPenOfDoom hope for. And I fear that reducing existing tbans to the lighter scope will only encourage those currently under the existing scope to cause further problems in the topic space. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 12:41, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Courcelles makes a good point responding to a comment by Salvio giuliano below, regarding subclause (i)(c) of the discretionary sanctions clause in the case remedies. However, it seems that the prevailing interpretation is that parts of biographical articles that don't deal with GG or gender-related disputes are acceptable areas for edits by people currently under the GG topic ban. Perhaps if there's any clarification or loosening of the topic ban restriction to be done, it should be to codify this interpretation only. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 01:42, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
@Bishonen: Is it really so hard to believe that someone might, you know, do some research before beginning to contribute to Wikipedia, or that they'd prefer to not have an account? That they might not be a logged out editor, but someone genuinely editing from an IP address? Because I actually know some such editors. Perhaps you need to remember to assume good faith before blocking people without having any evidence other than that they disagree with you. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 20:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by squiggleslashMakes sense to me, especially as admins seem to be stretching what constitutes a controversy or gender related (Lena Dunham is a woman, therefore gender related; some universities have controversies related to their sexual assault policies/some women have falsely accused men of rape on campus therefore Campus Rape is controversial despite nobody mainstream actually being in favor of it) I would replace the existing topic ban with this, not add it as an option, and see about creating a more broader topic ban with better language. But given that suggestion will be ignored, I agree with adding it as an option as proposed by the initiator of this proposal. --Squiggleslash (talk) 12:57, 17 March 2015 (UTC) @Coldacid - You're explaining the justification for Lena Dunham being a "controversy" which wasn't in dispute. @GorillaWarfare - I wouldn't interpret this as narrowing the scope as creating a well defined scope. The current scope is highly open to interpretation, a sizable gulf exists between what editors (and most people outside of Wikipedia) think is meant by "Gender based controversy" and what admins/Arbcom does. What supporters of the status quo are calling "boundary pushing" isn't boundary pushing, it's people who believe they're on the outside of the boundary. @GorillaWarfare and other admins now forming views similar to those expressed - OK, well just be aware that this amendment is being proposed to deal with a significant issue, and that it seems likely that unless addressed the relevant Wikipedian disciplinary bureaucracy seems likely to continue to be abused, day in, day out, by the usual suspects bringing in attempts to harass editors whose edits they disagree with. This fix would not, by itself, completely solve it, but the issues can't be solved without this type of fix. As far as the topics under discussion go: I would hope admins and Arbcom recognize there's a difference between personally believing that something fits a particular definition, and believing that everyone else must share the same views. Unfortunately it sounds, from comments like "Toeing the line not attempting to steer clear of the topic area" that this isn't the case, that you can't imagine why anyone would disagree with you, and that you're assuming bad faith in anyone who expresses an opinion on the subject you disagree with. (And for reference, I don't think either topic can be described as either - one isn't controversial, the other isn't gender related) I hope this is not the case and I'm simply misunderstanding this. @Seraphimblade - It doesn't sound like the specific abuses you're concerned about, people finding excuses to talk about Gamergate, would be affected by placing them under this topic ban. I'm also a little concerned that much of the opposition to this proposal focuses on whether the right message is being sent by "narrowing" the ban, rather than trying to ensure the right thing is done. Is it a problem if an established, reputable, editor who was sanctioned and topic banned for being slightly uncivil and reverting a few consensus-opposed edits on the Gamergate page, corrects problems on the Lena Dunham page? Is this really what you're trying to prevent? It seems that the current consensus is "We think Lena Dunham is a gender-related controversy and it's impossible for anyone to disagree with us and not know we think that", and "We can't allow there to be a clearer, tighter, standard topic ban because in some unspecified way that would be rewarding people who are confused by the current ban." I respectfully ask those of you stating those positions to review whether or not they make sense. --Squiggleslash (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC) Agree with Tarc here. Hoping the next group of people who make up Arbcom have a better handle on how to prevent drama, and the sanity of punishing its victims. Unwatching. --Squiggleslash (talk) 13:02, 18 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by BeauxlieuxFirst, the restriction should be for the GamerGate Controversy, not GamerGate, that's the ant, which as far as I know isn't an issue. Second, the way Wikipedia archives arbitration, the history is not included so @Squiggleslash:'s valuable comments which they chose to redact aren't included after the IMHO inappropriate comments, but the comments are in the history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment&direction=prev&oldid=651502323 (and yes, I'm a new editor, and if I spend all my time trying to figure out how to make all these fancy links, I won't write this) The inappropriate questioning of Squiggleslash's integrity, however, remains in the arbitration archives, and I'm glad about that. So, @Rhoark: in terms of your concern, "I've also heard it claimed the resulting off-site campaigning is further discouraging female participation in Wikipedia, which is a hot-button issue." The behavior here is what is discouraging female participation. Exposing that behavior isn't the problem. Women appreciate knowing what they may be getting themselves into and making informed decisions based on the reality of what is actually happening in the forum. Calling rape "a gender-related controversy" is disheartening to many women. It is not validating survivors. Rape is rape. Furthermore, I think these bans and sanctions should be accompanied by a requirement of an apology as I outline here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Require_Apologies That would help create a more civil environment which would be welcoming to women. Beauxlieux (talk) 16:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by HipocriteWhy is Rhoark, an obvious sockpuppet participating in administrative spaces unblocked? Hipocrite (talk) 13:48, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by TenOfAllTrades(ec) @Thryduulf: I assume that Hipocrite noted that Rhoark is a sockpuppet, based on the very conspicuous behavioral clues. Demanding a full noticeboard discussion and bureaucratic performance before being allowed to acknowledge the obvious is unproductive and unhelpful. I'm not involved in this area at all and I'm only commenting because I saw your response go by on my watchlist, but even I can see that Rhoark was not a new user when he created his account.
When an obviously-experienced editor creates a new account solely to work in a controversial area, it legitimately raises eyebrows. Even if no one can be bothered to formally analyze and report the duck, it's silly and disingenuous to pretend that we can't hear it quacking. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Tarc
Note that I revised the "party clown car" header above; there's a level of decorum I expect from editors with whom I have no prior relationship. This did not meet it.
Statement by BosstopherPlease accept this ammendment Arbcom. The purpose of a topic ban is to prevent disruption. The current scope of the standard Gamergate topic ban only serves to cause disruption. Bosstopher (talk) 15:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by SappowIt seems like what's really needed is clarification and enforcement; it does not necessarily have to be done by narrowing the scope, but it really does seem like a good idea to do it by some means, perhaps even just making a mission statement for what your desired outcome is. This process of enforcement-by-swarm-of-bees is really not a positive one for any outcome that involves the controversy cooling off and not giving everyone constant headaches, and the ambiguity of how the ruling can be interpreted does not help. I don't know what your preferred outcome would be, but maybe you should just make a statement along the lines of "just stop participating in controversial zones at all, look at all these articles about census data in Kazakhstan that need the attention of an experienced editor, why don't you go help touch up those some? Chill.", if that is the intended goal of the sanctions. It may also make sense to have some sort of contagion rule applied to the sanctions, because the way people keep pursuing sanctioned individuals like Mark Bernstein around to look for minor violations to open (yet another...) complaint and filing seems like a form of behavior that should be flat out punished itself, if the goal is to have the controversy cool down so good articles can be written. Essentially, if people persist in following around the sanctioned individuals and being hypervigiliant to bring the controversy to their actions anywhere for the slightest mis-step, they should catch some full bore sanctions themselves. Sappow (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by Metamagician3000The topic ban is intended to be broadly construed. The editors concerned need to accept that - as do any other editors who might be tempted to assist them - instead of trying to test the boundaries. Admins also need to understand the broad nature of the topic ban and enforce it. Editors against whom adverse findings were made, with sanctions such as topic bans, should not be given areas in which they are free to keep warring: they should understand that battleground tactics and non-neutral approaches to editing are unwelcome, and they should err on the side of keeping away from any articles that push their emotional/political buttons. The outcome of the case was clear, so I suggest that the request be rejected. If it's accepted, it should only be for the purpose of underlining the broad nature of the ban. Metamagician3000 (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by FloqWhen dozens of new or long-dormant accounts crawl out of the woodwork, all to take one side in a controversial issue, including starting and participating in Arb-related issues, having an Arb insist that we assume each new one is legit unless all the forms are filed is disappointing. The solution is not to insist on SPI's, the solution is to block them or topic ban them as soon as they show their colors. I have blocked or topic banned a couple such accounts, and I'm not even active in the area. I suggest ArbCom pass a motion that no new arbitration requests or clarifications or modifications or enforcement requests or anything are allowed from single-purpose accounts who don't significantly edit anything other than GamerGate articles. A single-purpose account dedicated to editing about snails, or 16th century Japanese poetry, is helpful. Several dozen single-purpose accounts dedicated to pushing one side in a controversial area, not so much. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:14, 18 March 2015 (UTC) Comment by Bishonen@Thryduulf: @TenOfAllTrades: This is in re Thryduulf's rebuke to Hipocrite below, where he orders Hipocrite to either withdraw the accusation of sockpuppetry or produce SPI-worthy evidence. (Floquenbeam's comment above obviously refers to that as well, though Floq seems to have become outrageously polite in his old age.) In a recent request for enforcement of the GamerGate sanctions, MastCell indeffed the OP as an obvious sock.[96] And I blocked an IP on the same ground, see User talk:76.64.12.157. Neither MastCell nor I could suggest obvious, or any, sockmasters; we blocked because these were obviously people hiding behind respectively an account and an IP to evade scrutiny and stir shit in the GamerGate area without getting their experienced-editor persona in trouble. That is a block reason IMO. But if anybody would like to propose a motion to desysop MastCell and me, I'm fine with that too. Thryduulf, I hope you'll find the time to reply to my comment, and Floquenbeams, as you still haven't to Ten's (an extremely respected admin). That is not meant as a crack; I realize wikitime is precious for arbs. Still, I'm not sure my priorities would be the same as yours in this instance. Bishonen | talk 16:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC).
Statement by KaciemonsterConsidering that the problem here is endless wikilawyering from editors trying to get their opponents blocked or topic banned, the impossibly broad sanction wording opens up more opportunities to continue those same disputes elsewhere on wiki, especially AE. It should be obvious that the current sanctions aren't working the way they were meant to, since the current wording is meant to prevent the problems on the Gamergate article from traveling to other gender-related articles. We're dealing with complaints on these boards that people are editing articles that technically fall under the scope of the sanctions, so they're obviously not living up to their purpose and just causing more drama. Narrowing the sanctions would allow for editors to edit topics that have nothing to do with Gamergate without the fear of breaking their topic ban on a technicality. I don't think the issue is editors testing the boundaries of the topic ban, I think the issue is that the topic ban isn't intuitive. I'm pretty sure that technically the Girl Scouts of the USA article would count under the current topic ban, because of the whole "girls can't be scouts" thing. Also, any time a woman does anything and gets pushback just because she's a woman, it would count under the topic ban. Should we start issuing sanction notices for articles like that? Or do these sanctions only count if the editor has edited Gamergate and a sort of almost gender-related article? Confusion about the scope of the topic ban has been expressed since the proposed decision was posted. Since there's still confusion, consider that the problem isn't the editors, it's that the current topic ban isn't clear enough. If the scope is narrowed, Gamergate editors begin editing gender-related topics, and problems start popping up on those articles, it'll become obvious who the editors are that are causing trouble, and they can be dealt with. Kaciemonster (talk) 15:34, 18 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by LizWhile I think I understand what the committee intended by the phrasing "gender-related dispute" or "gender-related controversy", in practice, it is overly broad and, for instance, could cover the biographies of any man or woman who is deemed controversial. For example, rape is a criminal act, it is not a "controversy" and an article on campus rape shouldn't be covered by an editing restriction that is focused on the GamerGate controversy and its associated subjects. It might be in some people's minds, gender is associated with feminism but gender is a social and cultural construct that is an aspect of any and every individual person, man, woman or child. If the AC meant "feminism" and/or "sexism" than restrict the topic ban to these specific subjects, not any article that touches on aspects of gender. Liz Read! Talk! 16:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by EChastainAbsolutely agree with the statement by Liz. GorillaWarfare, doesn't "gender" related equally to men and women (males and females)? Potentially almost any article could fall within "broadly construed", or even WikiProjects as has happened in a "broadly construed" interpretation in another ARCA case. Courcelles, Salvio giuliano, the problem with "the current scope needs to be enforced, and boundary testing dealt with", as you say below, is that many editors don't understand what "the current scope" is. If people like me knew the "current scope", then we could take a stab at the "broadly construed" part. EChastain (talk) 21:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC) Statement by Hell in a BucketI agree with others, GorillaWarfare has a conflict of interest that she denies is a problem but it clearly is an issue in her judgement. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Statement by Cailil
Statement by (anonymous)
Statement by DHeywardAs I said on the other request, I think it needs to be clarified that articles like Lena Dunham are not completely off-limits and should clarify using real language ((not "standard language") that it's a "topic ban" not an "article ban". I do however believe that rape of any form is gender related. Rape is overwhelmingly a violent act committed by men against women. The view of rape as a crime against women (and not their husbands or fathers) has certainly evolved along with the struggle for gender equality. "Date rape" became a topic beginning at least in the 1980's as violent crime against women with "No means no" campaigns and the increase in awareness and prosecutions. "Campus rape" is certainly gender related and we now have "Yes means yes" campaigns. To the extent that Lena Dunham's biography article covers the details of her experience as a rape victim is, at its core, a deeply personal and overwhelmingly female experience. The purpose of the topic bans is to keep editors from disrupting that section because of a previous pattern of being unable to do so. The battle that occurred/occurs at GamerGate does not need to spill over to every article with gender or sexual overtones due to the personalities or strongly held views that inhibit collaboration or consensus. It is certainly the case in the Lena Dunham article that it's not her article, per se, that was at issue or her gender or sexuality. Rather the personalities that got involved in writing about those issues "brought their bags with them", so to speak. Bishonen blocked a few. BLP issues were fixed but now we have another WP:BATTLEGROUND because of GamerGate baggage. GamerGate topic bans should include both gender and sexuality as both are/were GamerGate battleground topics from the beginning. Topic banned editors will bring their doppelganger when they edit topics that touch on their ban. Ultimately enforcement should be judged by disruption and an overly broad sanction that makes entire persons off-limits creates disruption with frivolous complaints. The topic ban language should reflect that it's only the topic as it relates to the person that's an issue, and not the person as they relate to the topic. "Toeing the line" should be met with warnings and sanctions as it shouldn't be tolerated as the purpose of clarifying the language is to let TBanned editors edit areas unrelated to gender or sexuality, not inch closer to the abyss. --DHeyward (talk) 22:52, 19 March 2015 (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 case request or provide additional information. Gamergate: Clerk notes
Gamergate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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.
Clarification request: GamerGate (September 2015)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. Initiated by The Devil's Advocate at 22:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC) List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request Statement by The Devil's AdvocateI was blocked for two weeks by Future Perfect at Sunrise as a result of this edit-warring report. The cited reason in my block log was "breach of topic-ban at WP:AE, disruptive wikilawyering over blatant abuse of BLP" because I removed an unsourced claim about a living person. As can be seen from the noticeboard discussion, the material I removed claimed an individual was an expert in a certain area, despite no sources or evidence backing up the claim that this person was an expert in that area. One user cited an article claiming the individual was an expert in other matters, but not the specific matter where expertise was being claimed. There appears to be no dispute from the admins that the claim itself was unsourced nor any dispute that it was a contentious claim. According to WP:3RRNO and WP:BANEX that would seem to make my removal a valid claim of exemption on its own. What the admins who commented seem to be arguing is that because claiming someone is an expert in not egregious or libelous I can't claim an exemption. However, my expressly stated reason for invoking the exemption was not simply the claim of expertise, but why the claim was made. The user who made the claim was trying to use it to back up an accusation this claimed expert made against another person. It was a very serious accusation, but it was mentioned in a reliable source so it was not something I could validly remove. However, the unsourced claim about the person making the accusation was being used to present this as some sort of expert evaluation when it was not presented as such in that source or any other source. What I am seeking clarification on is whether I am correct that claiming someone is an expert on a specific subject without backing from sources, especially when said claim is being used to back a serious accusation against another person, was the kind of BLP violation where I can validly invoke an exemption. If so I would like some note either in my block log, in the sanction log, or both, that this was a wrongful block. Admittedly, I would have preferred to handle this privately through my block appeal given some aspects of why this is a serious BLP issue cannot be discussed publicly, but as my block's expiration before the appeal could proceed has rendered that moot I am seeking this as a form of relief. I think at the very least the Committee should be able to clarify whether my claim of an exemption was valid and therefore the block invalid.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC) Seraphim, both 3RRNO and BANEX only say it needs to be an obvious BLP violation, which is any unsourced or poorly-sourced contentious material, and the two admins who actually commented on it seemingly agreed the material was both contentious and unsourced in this case. Their disagreement appears to be based on either a misunderstanding of how BLP exemptions work, a misunderstanding of why I was reverting it, or both. My revert of the first editor was because the editor cited a source that did not back the specific claim made and I noted as much when reverting the editor. Given that the second editor is a new editor who appears to have a singular focus on the topic area (as was the last editor to revert me), I did not regard the editor's objection the same way I would regard an uninvolved third party's or even that of an involved editor with a diverse and well-established editing history. Once it was reported by an established editor and an admin objected, I ceased reverting and tried to explain in more detail to that admin. Eventually, I was able to convince the editor who was the second to revert me that my removal was valid. At the time I was blocked no one was pushing for it, not even the admin who objected.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:51, 18 September 2015 (UTC) Hullabaloo, the reality is conduct noticeboards are not places for discussing content and it is not clear how the claims being made were relevant to the conduct issues raised. It is also the case that ArbCom has taken a more restrictive view on BLP and that is evidenced in their endorsement of topic bans over more minor past BLP violations on conduct noticeboard pages that are relevant to a content discussion in the GamerGate case. One of Future Perfect's own actions on a much more indirect alleged BLP violation on the talk page itself was endorsed in a finding of fact in the original case. Given that ArbCom believed these actions were severe enough to warrant rather harsh sanctions on the basis of BLP, there is no reason to believe the claims I removed are not to be considered BLP violations. I would suggest the common element in my case and those cases is concern about libel. To suggest an expert on a subject has evaluated someone's conduct and determined it qualified as a rather severe form of misconduct is potentially libelous if there is no indication that person is an expert on the subject and, in this case, such a claim has harmful implications for ongoing legal proceedings where the accused's constitutional rights may be at stake. Guerillero, clearly the issue I am raising is the allowance all of those restrictions make for addressing obvious BLP violations. Other editors sanctioned on this issue have been allowed considerable leeway by AE admins as it concerns BLP exemptions, more leeway than I am asking for as no one here seems to dispute that the claims were unsourced and contentious, it was not an issue that had already been resolved, and I am not attempting to sanction anyone. I have similarly used the exemption on several occasions as it relates to GamerGate and connected issues, including instances where I was talking to admins or admins and others plainly supported my actions. My restrictions allow me to do such things to address BLP issues and that is what I believe is the case here as well.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC) Thryduulf, all of my restrictions very explicitly state they are subject to the usual exceptions and cite WP:3RRNO, which means BLP violations are a valid exemption. WP:BANEX is not even remotely meant to limit the number of times BLP violations can be reverted.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 19:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC) Since Mark Bernstein has made the point of mentioning many of the specifics I have avoided mentioning, let me point out the problem more explicitly. Nowhere in the Guardian article is Anita Sarkeesian claimed to be an expert and certainly not in the area of domestic violence, which is what Bernstein was asserting at AE with the clear intent that her inflammatory accusation against another living person be taken more seriously. Anyone who read his comment in full would discern that unduly legitimizing that accusation from an involved party as an expert opinion was the intended effect. Even if some sources suggest she is an expert in feminism or harassment that does not make her an expert in domestic violence and she was definitely not sought out as an expert on that subject or any other, but rather was sought out as a prominent figure in the GamerGate controversy. To assert that she is an expert in the area of domestic violence without any basis as a way to make her inflammatory attack seem like an expert evaluation is so egregious that I find it baffling how anyone can not immediately see the problem with it from a BLP perspective.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC) Thryduulf and Yunshui, I was able to explain the BLP violation in one edit summary and despite all the administrative wikilawyering over BANEX, the standard is obviousness and it is obvious that this was an unsourced and contentious claim about a living person and thus an obvious BLP violation.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 13:58, 21 September 2015 (UTC) @MarkBernstein: You were plainly claiming Anita Sarkeesian is an expert on domestic violence to present her domestic violence accusation against another living person as an expert opinion. Saying there is no basis in any sourcing to claim her as an expert on domestic violence is not saying she is not an expert. Whatever I may think of it, she is stated in many sources to be an expert on gender representation in popular culture, but that is fundamentally different from being an expert on domestic violence.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 17:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC) @MarkBernstein: Anita Sarkeesian has been regularly interviewed as a victim of harassment or online abuse, not as an expert on it, and the Guardian interview is a continuation of such interviews. Even if she were considered an expert on harassment, she has certainly never been regarded in any source as an expert on domestic violence. This "unimpeachable" source that interviewed her as a victim of harassment presented a serious unsubstantiated allegation against the same person as fact in the same paragraph where Sarkeesian's accusation is included. It is an outlet that has made demonstrably false claims against that person as well.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 18:25, 21 September 2015 (UTC) @Guerillero: I have no personal conflict with Bernstein. Only reason I responded to him is to address his revisionism regarding what he claimed and hopefully better illustrate with my response why I felt the claims were an obvious and egregious breach of BLP.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 21:36, 21 September 2015 (UTC) @Cuchullain: Far as I know the sole "BLP violation" had nothing to do with Anita Sarkeesian and was about how I imperfectly raised a BLP issue. Only reason I mentioned Sarkeesian by name here is because Bernstein did it to repeat everything I was trying not to say. All I have said is that there is no indication she is an expert on domestic violence, which is hardly badmouthing her.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 04:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC) Statement by Future Perfect at SunriseStatement by CuchullainThis is pretty clear cut on the face of it. TDA is banned from the drama boards and GamerGate, and he came in "redacting" another editor's comments. Then he proceeded to edit war over his redactions and make the rather outlandish claim that this was a BLP issue. Here is his first edit containing the alleged problematic material. This was a good block on Future's part, and given the fact that TDA is still trying to squeeze drama out of it it's probably time to revisit the question of a site ban.--Cúchullain t/c 16:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Statement by JbhunleyThere is, to use an analogous example, a huge difference in the way these two statements will be read and the potential damage to John Smith's reputation:
I do think that the concern expressed is a valid BLP issue in regards to Smith even though the un-sourced material related to Doe. This is just the kind of thing BLP is intended to protect against and I think if it had happened on a non-Gamergate article more people would have chimed in to discuss the issue rather than being terrified to dip a toe into that toxic hellpool. JbhTalk 20:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC) Statement by The Big Bad WolfowitzAnd, once again, we begin to see ArbCom twisting itself into knots to evade the terms of community-established policy that it has not authority to alter or grant exceptions to. WP:BLP covers all types of claims, whether "negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable". WP:BANEX is quite clear and straightforward -- it refers simply to "obvious" violations, not (as @Seraphimblade: would have it, "blatant, obvious, and noncontroversial violations" involving grossly negative material. Jbhunley is pretty much on target, and I'm baffled by the fact that no one involved in the underlying dispute, not even TDA, seems to have noticed that saying "Notable Person A has accused Living Person B of domestic violence", without referencing, is ordinarily a textbook BLP violation, whether or not Notable Person A is an expert in a relevant field. More important, though, is that this is an area that no one needs to get into in order to resolve this matter. If the disputed material was in articlespace, or otherwise presented in Wikipedia's editorial voice, no reasonable editor would dispute that it failed BLP and needed to be removed. BLP applies generally to all material outside articlespace -- except material "related to making content choices". Editors are allowed a reasonable degree of freedom in discussions of what should be included in articles, and are not subject to the rigorous sourcing requirements of BLP in those discussions. This both facilitates useful discussion and prevents the infinite regress that would result if a disputed claim were immediately removed from talk page discussion under the same standards that would be applied to statements in articles. Saying that Anita Sarkeesian is an "expert" on "sexual harassment" is contentious. (Whether it should be is a very different issue, as is whether she is sufficiently familiar with the subject to comment on it reliably.) The statement, without sourcing, doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article. But it wasn't in an article, and it was part of a discussion relating to content choices, albeit at some remove. If the disputed statements had been made in a talk page discussion related to inclusion of Sarkeesian's statements in a Gamergate-related article, it is unlikely they would be seen as objectionable, in part because it's clearly an editor's opinion about Sarkeesian's reputation/stature. "Researcher X's opinion on the link between vaccines and autism can't be trusted because he makes big bucks as an expert witness for one side in the dispute" doesn't belong in an article, but we can't have useful discussions on whether Researcher X is a reliable source if we insist, in effect, that a case must clearly be proved before it can be argued. Now I don't know just how closely the discussion that led to the block is related to a content choice. It comes from an arbitration discussion related to a talk page discussion of media commentary on Gamergate. What should be clear, however, is that it's not obviously unrelated, and therefore isn't an obvious BLP violation. BLP isn't limited to articles, but it also isn't intended to stifle reasonable content-related discussions. There are limits, but the content at issue here doesn't remotely approach them. FPAS got the outcome right, even though I wouldn't agree with their "outrageously lame" description, but if there was a BLP violation (which I doubt), it certainly wasn't obvious. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 01:50, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
Statement by IP editorEcho Jbhunley. This is nothing like the situation described by The Big Bad Wolfowitz, in which a researcher - whose work is being considered for inclusion in an article - is accused of having a conflict of interest. That's still something that ought to be sourced, but in the present situation, we have an individual being accused of a serious crime by proxy. And not just any individual, not a potential source, but instead a party to the controversy being argued about. There is no article on Wikipedia about him (although there is about the purported victim of his alleged wrongdoings), and in fact as far as I can tell no representation anywhere on Wikipedia of his views or his side of the story. Further, (I only follow suit out of a paranoia that I would violate some unstated rule by doing so) everyone seems reluctant to even name this person. Yet apparently it is okay to say for established editors to say anything negative they like about him, in the current climate. Isn't that kind of treatment precisely what BLP is meant to prevent? Is perhaps the avoidance of his name meant as an end-run around BLP policy? Because if that's all it takes, then I submit that the whole endeavour is meaningless, as it takes no effort to determine his name with simple, obvious Google search terms. 74.12.92.201 (talk) 09:57, 19 September 2015 (UTC) Statement by IP editorTDA, I think Thryduulf's point is that they aren't viewing this as a viable WP:BANEX. You may have thought it was, but if the powers that be don't agree with you, that puts you in violation. It's a risk you run when you wade into an area you are banned from, rather than just notifying an admin. 76.93.226.132 (talk) 00:13, 20 September 2015 (UTC) Statement by MarkBernsteinSome appear to think that the underlying passage might conceivably have been a violation of WP:BLP. This seems far-fetched; that it was thought a clear or unmistakable violation seems incomprehensible. In the August 29, 2015 issue of The Guardian, Jessica Valenti wrote a 3000-word story about Anita Sarkeesian, titled in the Web edition "Anita Sarkeesian interview: 'The word "troll" feels too childish. This is abuse'" [100]. The Guardian is an old, large, and revered British paper, and I remind the committee that Britain’s laws regarding newspaper defamation are famously strict. A major newspaper devoting such a lengthy interview on the subject of abuse and internet harassment to Anita Sarkeesian is itself a strong argument that Anita Sarkeesian is considered an expert on the intersection of internet harassment and abuse. Sarkeesian’s many interviews and lectures provide further evidence if evidence is desired. That interview includes the following paragraph:
That is the paragraph under discussion at the start of this edit war, which a topic-banned editor undertook lest a Wikipedia talk page mention material that had, hours or days before, appeared in one of the world's great newspapers, and which was clearly attributed to its source in the paper and in my paraphrase thereof. (I believe the same quotations were used, in opposite sequence, in a second essay that appeared in a different publication about this time; we can resolve that if you think it useful.) Bending over backwards (as this committee seems to insist we do), we might walk through the criteria outlined at WP:BLP.
It should go without saying, but apparently cannot, that Sarkeesian and Quinn use the terms "violence" and "abuse" metaphorically to describe the impact of written or spoken words; we are referring here to hurtful writing, not to literal kicks and punches. The use of this language should be familiar to all members of the committee and indeed to all Wikipedia editors, and I will forbear (for once!) to catalog any of the innumerable examples in literature, law, and criticism. If the committee really wants examples, ask me or consult any Womens Studies department or department of literature, beginning perhaps with The Man Of Property. I conclude that it might have been nice to see a defense from this committee of a hard-working editor who has been careful to adhere closely to BLP, whose work was termed a violation of WP:BLP to gain a narrow and temporary advantage in a dispute, and whose reputation has again been unjustly and uncaringly disparaged for upholding Wikipedia’s supposed policies. Whether the committee is any longer guided by policy is certainly open to doubt. I will not write more without invitation, as the committee seems disinclined to hear me, but if I can be of service I will be happy to do what I may.MarkBernstein (talk) 02:19, 20 September 2015 (UTC) @The Devil's Advocate: Speaking of BLP violations, let’s review the bidding:
The standard here is a "blatant and obvious BLP violation". Can repeating Sarkeesian’s own words, as quoted both in the headline and the body of perhaps Britain’s leading newspaper, constitute an obvious BLP violation? Can it be a blatant and obvious violation to say that Sarkeesian is an expert if major newspapers regard her as one? Compare this page's decision to condone an administrator’s claim that he knew of a named individual’s sexual misdeeds but could not write about them on-wiki "at this time"; the standard that apparently applies here is that widely-published and expert opinions that criticize guys are obviously BLP violations, but sexual innuendo against their victims is not. Indeed, this page is used to defame the reputation of a professional critic who is accused above of not being an expert -- simply a woman "involved" in Gamergate. Shameful. MarkBernstein (talk) 14:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC) @The Devil's Advocate: It is widely known that Sarkeesian has written and spoken extensively on online sexual harassment, which is in fact the topic of this interview. She was asked whether a specific, widely-discussed online act was abusive. She gave her answer, which may not be the answer you would have given. It is not Wikipedia's place to substitute the judgment of individual editors for the judgment of reliable sources: an unimpeachable source here said "this expert has stated that this act was abusive", and you maintain that not only is reporting the unchallenged statement in The Guardian a BLP violation, but you continue to maintain that it is a blatant and obvious BLP violation while continuing to use Wikipedia to denigrate the reputation of the subject. For reference, Sarkeesian holds an MA in Social and Political Thought (York) and
This is the person whose credentials are so weak that her opinion on online abuse is blatant and obvious BLP, and whose claim to expertise myst be redacted? Seriously? That this is countenanced by the arbitrators beggars belief. MarkBernstein (talk) 17:48, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Statement by SitushI've no idea on what grounds you think that The Guardian is perhaps Britain's leading newspaper, although it is certainly the daily newspaper in Britain that most stridently supports feminist politics of all shades, and it does like to quote so-called experts who quite often turn out to be little more than exceptionally good self-publicists and/or highly opinionated loudmouths championing various pressure groups etc. Some are even regular op-ed columnists. This - "perhaps Britain's leading newspaper" - is yet another example of you making vague suggestions to bolster supposed authority. FWIW, I read The Guardian pretty much daily and have done so for over 30 years. I like it but, well, most people read other papers. I suggest that the arbs ignore what you say, as you seem to think they are doing already. They can make their minds up without it. - Sitush (talk) 16:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC) Statement by GamerPro64Should this request be closed since TDA got blocked for a month? I noticed he got blocked at 16:06, 22 September 2015 so it doesn't make sense for this to still be up if he can't continue here. GamerPro64 00:42, 23 September 2015 (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. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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: GamerGate (October 2016)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. Initiated by Rhoark at 14:54, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Statement by RhoarkThe 500/30 restriction on Gamergate controversy and its talk page came at a time of much higher press attention on the topic. While unregistered contributions were disruptive more by their quantity than content, the restriction was helpful in tamping down the recycled arguments repeatedly brought by people unfamiliar with the already extensive talk page archives. The situation today is quite different. The discussion, which has been described as "stalled" and "moribund", is more impeded by a lack of participation than an excess of it. Several experienced but particularly disruptive editors have also been banned from the topic since then, smoothing talk page interactions considerably. Being as this is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit", no form of page protection should persist beyond the circumstance it was intended to address. The recent related request for comment demonstrated no need for any kind of page protection, as the few IP editors contributed nothing worse than snark. There is every reason to believe the Gamergate talk page could remain civil and productive while merely semi-protected. Rhoark (talk) 14:54, 13 October 2016 (UTC) Statement by Zad68Statement by DumuzidI certainly can't deny that circumstances have changed a great deal since the restriction was introduced, though I confess I am still wary. I think the suggestion of removing the restriction from the talk page is worth trying, at the very least. I am hopeful it won't be a problem, but I won't be terribly surprised if it quickly turns in to an imbroglio. Here's to positive thinking! Dumuzid (talk) 15:07, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Statement by MasemSupport on removing the 500/30 restriction on the talk page only, but if the talk page turns out again to suffer from offsite brigading or contining hostility from IP/SPAs, a reasonable consensus determination of administrators should be sufficient to re-engage that protection (rather than having to re-engage arbcom/AE). --MASEM (t) 16:29, 13 October 2016 (UTC) Statement by The WordsmithIt is no secret that I strongly dislike the use of 500/30 outside of the article namespace, as it is used here to censor feedback and discussions from new editors and our readers, the very people we write this encyclopedia for. The Gamergate controversy seems to have mostly died out on Wikipedia, likely as a result of removing problem editors through blocks and topic bans. I think it is a good idea to downgrade to semiprotection on the Talkpage (but not the article itself), as it is unclear that the heightened level is still needed. If disruption resumes and semiprotection is unable to eliminate it, I would be willing to swiftly reapply the protection as a Discretionary Sanction. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:52, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Statement by BilbyRemoving it makes a lot of sense to me. When this was first applied I went digging to see if there had been a problem with editors who would have fallen under the restriction, and couldn't find any. Semi seemed to be doing the job, and the occasional not-particularly-useful comment was being handled by standard editing practices. I don't see why that wouldn't be the case now - GamerGate is still active, even though it is pretty much a shadow of its past, but any problems are likely to still be stopped by semi-protection, and if anything more happens we have the eyes to handle it. I'd like to leave the restriction on the article proper, though - I'm more concerned about locking people out of a discussion than I am with direct editing of the article. - Bilby (talk) 08:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC) Statement by MRD2014I agree with this proposal. I feel that the talk page of the Gamergate controversy should not be extended confirmed protected, but should still be semi-protected, like how the article on Anita Sarkeesian is extended confirmed protected and the talk page of that article is semi-protected. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 15 October 2016 (UTC) Statement by ForbiddenRockyI generally support removing 300/50 from the GGC talk page. And if it becomes a problem, it can be put back easily. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 04:59, 17 October 2016 (UTC) Statement by Rich FarmbroughI have always felt that this went a little to far. It would be good to see it removed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:01, 19 October 2016 (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. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
GamerGate: Motion regarding Talk:Gamergate controversyIn May 2015 administrator Zad68 imposed extended confirmed protection of Talk:Gamergate controversy as a discretionary sanction in response to this AE request. The Arbitration Committee notes that Zad68 is currently inactive so the sanction cannot be modified without consensus or Committee action. Therefore the Committee lifts the discretionary sanction on Talk:Gamergate controversy (not the article) to allow the community to modify the protection level in accordance with the Wikipedia:Protection policy.
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: GamerGate (February 2017)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. Initiated by NorthBySouthBaranof at 07:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Statement by NorthBySouthBaranofI am writing to request that the topic ban imposed upon me in the above case two years ago be reduced to a probation, so that I may demonstrate that I can successfully edit in those areas. In the two years since the sanction was imposed, I have, in good faith, abided by the requirements of the sanction and I have not been subject to any other sanctions for any other reason. Rather, I have accepted the lessons from my experience which led to the arbitration case, I have continued to contribute useful content in a variety of areas and I have continued to uphold fundamental content policies in contentious disputes. I believe that I should have the opportunity to demonstrate that I can productively participate in those topic areas again, and if any issues recur, I accept the consequences that will surely follow.
Statement by BeeblebroxSince I'm here anyway. This case was such a nightmare. I supported restrictions against NBSB at the time and do not believe they were a mistake. That being said, they were hardly the worst actor in this mess and have stayed out of trouble for quite some time. I would support relaxing the restriction. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2017 (UTC) Statement by Sir JosephI just want to point out that on the Sarsour page, he seems to be implying that a Jewish source is not reliable, merely for it being Jewish. I hope I am misinterpreting that, otherwise I don't think a relaxation of bans is wise considering that we'll just have more drama in the future. Sir Joseph (talk) 20:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Statement by OIDAh once again Sir Joseph jumps in where if something could possibly be considered anti-Jewish then it totally must be. What NBSB said was, that the right-wing Daily Thinker and the Daily Caller (which was cited by the Jerusalem Post) was an unacceptable source for extremely defamatory claims against a living person. And to be honest even if the claim had originated with the Post, a quick perusal at BLPN will find that editors in general take a dim view of highly partisan press making extraordinary claims - in this case a Jewish newspaper claiming a Muslim activist has links to Hamas. Really just to add that Sir Joeseph's comments shouldnt be seen as some sort of negative, when NBSB was clearly acting in the best interests of the BLP by removing violating material contributed by a user who had gamed the system to gain Extended Confirmed status in order to edit in the IP area. (Subsequently the NYTimes has discussed the accusations - clearly in the context of what they were, baseless smears/attacks against the subject.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:00, 6 February 2017 (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. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
Motion: NorthBySouthBaranofThe topic-ban placed on NorthBySouthBaranof in the GamerGate case is terminated. Discretionary sanctions remain authorized to address any user misconduct in the relevant topic-area.
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.
Clarification request: GamerGate (July 2017)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. Initiated by Salvidrim! at 03:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC) List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request Statement by Salvidrim!This is a request for clarification of the scope of the Gamergate discretionary sanctions, particularly the second segment about its appplicability to To my neutral eye, this could be summed up as "a dispute unrelated to gender, on a gender-related article". The content dispute itself is being hashed out on WP:AN and is not the focus of this ARCA. The issue requiring clarification is whether the placing of the DS tag on the article's talk page was appropriate: the DS applies to "gender-related disputes", not "gender-related articles" (a journal article is not intrinsically a dispute), but does "broadly construed" mean that, in practice, it is applicable to any gender-related article topic? This ARCA flows right off of this AN thread: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Dispute over philoSOPHIA article, in which I have done my best to act as mediator. I ultimately consider myself neutral on the topic of the applicability of DS to this article (I can see it from both sides). In order to de-escalate and in the spirit of BRD, I have requested that SlimVirgin remove the DS tag temporarily pending this ARCA, but she declined to do so. I'm hoping Headbomb will calmly leave it as status quo while this is pending clarification. The questions to clarify here are:
I'd also personally like to see it clarified by what process the addition of a DS tag, once disputed, can be discussed or appealed. My instinct and experience says "ARCA" but that is not really mentioned anywhere on WP:ACDS and ArbCom procedure, of all things, benefits the most from clear directions. Perhaps the clerks can chime in on that. The parties will be notified (although I've spoked to them both about the referral to ARCA beforehand anyways) and will surely present their positions in their own sections in due time. A short summary of both sides (direct quotes only, so as to not misrepresent):
Statement by SlimVirginHeadbomb arrived at the article—a new article about philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism—wanting it to be deleted, calling it a "special snowflake", and being aggressive and insulting. He removed the names of the editorial board five times between 31 May and 3 June, reverting against three editors. [103][104][105][106][107] Headbomb based the removal on WP:JWG, an essay he and RandyKitty wrote for WikiProject Journals that says editorial boards need independent sources that discuss them in more than just passing, and that using the journal itself or the publisher isn't enough. It was Randykitty who added those words to the essay. Randykitty arrived at the article on 4 June and removed the names three times in under eight hours. [108][109][110] On 5 June Headbomb removed them again, [111] after which Randkitty slapped two tags on the article, [112] and Headbomb removed a secondary source that a new editor had mistakenly placed in External links. [113] This is disruption. Because of the reverting, I posted a DS alert on talk, to Headbomb and to Randykitty, which led to more insults from Headbomb on WP:AN: "utter fucking horseshit", I should be desyopped, I'm engaged in "toxic feminism". He alleged that by posting the alerts I had abused the tools, but informing editors that a page is subject to DS is not an admin action. Anyone can do that ("Any editor may advise any other editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for an area of conflict"), and must do it if a complaint under DS might be made. As to whether this is a "gender-related dispute or controversy ... broadly construed", it's gender-related in every sense: male editors arriving to tell female editors how they're allowed to write about women, in an article that references the exclusion of women from philosophy. The names they keep removing include women known for their work on gender and sexism, including Judith Butler, Kelly Oliver, and Linda Martín Alcoff—and specifically on how philosophy has been affected by its treatment of women. There's an enormous dispute about this in academic philosophy: because of sexual harassment, the type of material that is taught, and the way it is taught. [114][115] The article refers directly to this, citing one of philoSOPHIA's articles: "one of the functions of the journal is to ask what the daughter's responsibilities are toward the father: 'Must the daughter be patricidal?'" I created the article as part of an effort to improve the coverage of women in philosophy. I recently improved {{Feminist philosophy sidebar}} and created {{Feminist philosophy}}. The other editor working on the article, Hypatiagal, is a newish editor, a woman with a PhD in philosophy, who should be encouraged, not put through this. We would like to include the names of the editorial board in that article, and I plan to write about their ideas using the journal as an RS. Headbomb has decided that this isn't allowed. I am therefore invoking the gender-related DS as part of dispute resolution in the hope that it will end the disruption. SarahSV (talk) 07:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by HeadbombThere is zero gender component to the dispute, it is purely and solely about on whether or not editorial boards should be listed on journal articles since those usually violate WP:PROMO (we allow them when we have WP:IS discussing the role of the editorial board/specific members, otherwise we restrict ourselves to editors-in-chief and equivalent positions). I'll offer User talk:Randykitty#A request as material to consider here. I feel it was highly inappropriate of SV to shoehorn the dispute in a a gender-related issue so she could add the tag, placing the article under discretionary sanctions via admin fiat despite being WP:INVOLVED, and threatening to take us to WP:AE if we removed the tag. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Ks0stm: WP:ACDS states "Discretionary sanctions may be placed by administrators within specified topics after the Arbitration Committee has authorised their use". If an article doesn't have discretionary sanctions, then an admin places {{Ds/talk notice}} which states in plain bold "This page is subject to discretionary sanctions", how is this not putting the article under discretionary sanctions??? Or a violation of WP:INVOLVED? Especially since normal editors can't remove the sanctions, and admins can't without consent of the original admin? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
"Headbomb arrived at the article—a new article about philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism—wanting it to be deleted, calling it a "special snowflake", and being aggressive and insulting.
SV is so intent on winning this that now I'm being faulted for "Headbomb removed a secondary source that a new editor had mistakenly placed in External links". Or you know, cleanup. And lastly saying your deployment of discretionary sanctions while being WP:INVOLVED is horseshit is not an insult, and I find you making this somehow a gendered-debate just so you can at the same time abuse your admin position to stiffle debate, and depict myself and other editors of absolutely impeccable pedigree as User:Randykitty and User:DGG as some women-hating cavemen ("male editors arriving to tell female editors how they're allowed to write about women, in an article that references the exclusion of women from philosophy.") is the very embodiment of toxic feminism. You claimed my interest in this journal was non-genuine because I was a man. I became interested in the journal because it popped in WP:AALERTS for WP:JOURNALS, of which I'm a highly-active member (see User:Headbomb/My work#Academic serials and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Feminism/Archive 4#WP:JCW needs help, amongst others). You claimed that I bullied people/disagreed with editors because they were women. The first time I learned/realized anyone of them were women was when you brought it up. Hell, I didn't even realize you were a women until I noticed you had updated your signature to SarahSV. I simply gives zero fucks about what gender people are/identify as, and before accusing me of assuming everyone are men, no I don't do that. Hell, I even used the singular they to refer to you initially because I couldn't be arsed to look up which pronoun to use. It is way more efficient and effective to think of everyone as anonymous amorphous blobs of flesh. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
The template says "This page is subject to discretionary sanctions", SV who placed the template said it's under sanctions with threats to bring me to AE if I did remove the template, and WP:ACDS says "No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without the sanctioning admin's consent / other conditions". You'll forgive me if I take those things at face values. Or express consternation that SV is judged to be not-guilty of admin abuse because but failed to actually impose sanctions because of a technicality even thought the intent was clearly there.
Then on the basis of
ARBCOM decides Climate change sanctions apply to a dispute on martian dust devils because "see, both sides talked about climate changes". Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:07, 8 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by JohnuniqIf Headbomb is confident about being on the correct side, why all the indignation? Indignation often indicates that there is an underlying issue responsible for the enthusiasm with which arguments are presented. Headbomb removed the text six times (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6) and should know that if he is correct, the best procedure would be to wait per WP:NODEADLINE rather than harass good editors with belligerence. 04:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by OIDDiscretionary sanctions apply to topic areas. An article may be covered by the topic area and so be subject to potential sanctions in the event of a dispute, but applying the DS template as an Admin (which Headbomb correctly points out, a non-admin cant remove) while in a content dispute about a non-gender issue - then templating the people you are in dispute with - this is a clear attempt to chill any opposition and is sub-standard admin behaviour. If as an admin you take an action that a non-admin cannot revert while in a content dispute, its textbook involved. Its using your advanced permissions to win an argument. And frankly if SV doesnt want her actions to be described as 'toxic feminism' she should spend less time escalating bog-standard minor disputes into 'this is because I/we are women (or) you are not a woman' territory. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by MjolnirPantsIt seems to me to be fairly clear-cut that this article is a gender-related article (being about a journal of feminism). So as to whether it falls into the topic area in which these DSes are authorized is not really much of a question. However, it has been disputed (because it's also an academic journal, I believe is the reason), so I suppose this needs clarification. I'm completely uninvolved in this, but it's apparent to me that tempers are high, and so I'd like to offer some free beer and a sympathetic ear to any party on either side of this issue. Just swing on by my talk page. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by RexxSIt would be helpful to concentrate on policies, not personalities, if we are to move forward. Salvidrim! asks two questions: (1) Whether this type of article falls within the DS (in which case a refining of the DS wording might be examined), or at least whether this specific article does; (2) Whether it was appropriate for an editor involved in a content dispute to add a DS tag to the talk page. The wording of the GamerGate Remedy 1.1 is My view, for what it's worth, is that a non-gender-related dispute on a gender-related article is always likely to veer off onto a gender-related tack. From that, I would argue that having an uninvolved admin apply discretionary sanctions to an editor who transgresses the accepted standards outlined by AC/DS would be a good thing. That effectively answers both questions. The act of informing another editor that an uninvolved admin may arrive and impose sanctions at their discretion, is a neutral action, and definitely not an admin action. In fact, many might consider it doing them a favour. If the argument remains that such a notice may have a 'chilling effect', I would counter that an involved editor placing such a tag cannot be making even an implied threat, because they may not take any admin action in a dispute where they are involved anyway. --RexxS (talk) 16:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by CapeoWait a second here. Is the contention of SV and some of the arbs here that DS cover more than the article subject and discussion of the article subject? That a "gender-related dispute", as described in the DS, can literally be a man and a woman in a content dispute? Because, frankly, that's absurd. That's so wide open to gaming it's ridiculous. Gaming like this from SV: "it's gender-related in every sense: male editors arriving to tell female editors how they're allowed to write about women, in an article that references the exclusion of women from philosophy". Especially on a site where it's nobody's business what your gender is and where your gender, excluding editors that have to disclose their identities, isn't even verifiable. That an admin would even write that is shocking to me. It's hard to even parse the implications of that reading of the DS. So on any article, where the subject is related to women, deference has to be given to editors that claim to be women? That was the intention of this DS? That seems to be SV's interpretation: "Two women are not allowed to write an article about a feminist philosophy journal, and include the names of the women who run the journal, without three men—who know nothing about feminist philosophy—arriving with instructions about what kind of sources they will allow, two of them edit warring very aggressively to impose their preference." Again, an admin said this? It's so contrary to basic editing policy that it's a bit hard to fathom. Not to mention, wildly presumptuous. To be more on the point of the clarification, the templates need badly to be clarified. So anyone can put a Ds/talk notice on a page and start throwing around threats? Or in SV's case directly claim that page IS now under DS because they said so? The simple fact that even the responding Arbs aren't even sure if only admins are supposed to apply the template shows how discombobulated this system is. From SV's own words, "Yes, it is under discretionary sanctions. Initiating DS has nothing to do with being an admin," shows how ridiculous the current situation is. What does "initiating a DS" even mean if it holds no actual weight? I agree with SV that the DS alert, however you fashion it, should not mention Gamergate outside of the link to the actual case. It's confusing and has no relatable bearing on what, whatever interpretation you apply to the DS, is the presumptive point of the DS. Capeo (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by MasemOnly to comment that my reading of the DS is that the gender-related dispute or controversy should be as related to only what the topic is about, and not what happens behind the scenes between editors of WP; as I read this specific case, there's no gender-related dispute with the actual publication involved, but only editors' debate over it. Allowing the "dispute or controversy" to apply to talk pages or other behind-the-scenes areas (even things like edit summaries) opens up a potentially slippery slope not just in the GG area but other DS like American Politics (how many non-political pages have mentioned Trump in talk page discussions, thus flagging them under that DS?) Also, in the context of Capeo/GW's discussion, just saying that if one or more editors take offense to edits considering them "gender-related" , that again that a potential slippery slope that would allow people to game how DS are applied to influence how a talk page discussion occurs. There certainly are gender-based disputes between editors that are over content on pages that have no gender-related disputes, and I can see that if the dispute is heated enough, that the GG DS should be applied to the talk page, but that should be something determined by a consensus of uninvolved admins so that involved editors aren't gaming the system (not just in GG but in other areas) where the topic itself clearly doesn't broadly fall into the DS area. --MASEM (t) 14:40, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by AlanscottwalkerThe parade of horribles above by Masem is wholly unconvincing -- there is no "slippery slope", in putting a modern feminist journal talk page on the DS list for gender related. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by KingsindianIt has been asserted many times in the past that the reason for expanding the Gamergate sanctions to "gender-related" articles was to prevent the people importing conflicts into related areas. This area has absolutely nothing to do with Gamergate, nor has anyone said so. I fail to see how the use of the Gamergate discretionary sanctions is appropriate here. This just seems like WP:CREEP to me. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC) Statement by ForbiddenRocky
-- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 02:13, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by DHeywardI'm concerned about scope creep. Having seen the original GamerGate ArbCom case and articles, it's pretty clear that making a case that an article is covered by GamerGate will escalate tension and conflict. It's a last resort. It should be limited to articles that are already tainted with GamerGate conflict. Unless I'm missing something, this article has nothing to do with GamerGate but GamerGate is invoked because GamerGate topic area articles are covered by gender-related discetionary sanction. It is a huge mistake to look at remedies first and then searching for an ArbCom case that can be slapped on the article. I ran into this earlier in the week when someone tried to put the London attack in AP2 simply because AP2 has a 1RR restriction option and Trump commented on the bombing. It didn't fly there and that should be taken to heart here. Gamergate is toxic. It should be invoked only after GamerGate toxicity has infected it. Simply using GamerGate because it has a desired remedy is a poison-pill tag that escalates conflict rather than a remedy being applied to existing conflicts. If the conflict in this article is to GamerGate levels, file the appropriate arbitration case. If it's not at arbitration levels of conflict, then it certainly is not a GamerGate article. --DHeyward (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Statement by JytdogIt is hard to think clearly about identity politics. Here is my effort.
Statement by isaaclRecently there was an editor who claimed that an article on one the terrorist attacks in Paris (if I recall correctly) was authorized for discretionary sanctions for American politics because it contained a statement quoting American Vice-President Pence (in particular, edits to that sentence). A discussion subsequently ensued on whether or not this should be the case. I believe the community should be allowed to reach a consensus on the scope of discretionary sanctions, when possible, and a clarification sought on this page if an agreement cannot be reached. I do not think it is wise to automatically accept any single editor's claim that discretionary sanctions have been authorized for a given article. isaacl (talk) 03:09, 14 June 2017 (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. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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.
Clarification request: GamerGate (September 2019)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. Initiated by Fæ at 14:08, 2 August 2019 (UTC) List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Statement by FæThe GamerGate case I am requesting that to avoid doubt, Arbcom confirm by motion that use of discussion pages on Wikipedia to state or imply that trans people are part of a transgender conspiracy, agenda, ideology or similar defamatory "gay agenda" type conspiracy theory, shall be considered a breach of the discretionary sanction. This does not and need not impede or censor the use of valid civil discussion on Wikipedia in order to create and improve articles about these or related topics. This request is that to avoid doubt, Arbcom confirm by motion that anti-trans or transphobic language, shall be considered an immediate breach of the discretionary sanction. This does not and need not impede or censor the use of valid civil discussion on Wikipedia in order to create and improve articles about these or related topics. Anti-trans language includes the use of TIM (trans identified male) to refer to trans women, TIF (trans identified female) to refer to trans men and other deliberate use of misgendering terminology that may be established through case precedent, such as deliberately referring to a known trans woman as a man or a 'biological male' during Wikipedia discussion when trans woman is correct and accurate. This request is that Arbcom lay out how individuals may best raise an enforcement request, without being first required to exhaust dispute resolution processes just because they are observing the incident. Given the topic, and the likely practical experience that LGBT+ contributors have when "fronting" initial complaints and later requests, it is unrealistic to expect requesters to be so expert in process and dispute resolution methods that their complaint about, say, the inappropriate use of transphobic language, that they will ever want to go through the hostile opposition research and open trolling and pillorying that is the recognized norm for gender and LGBT+ related disputes. It is also unlikely that any LGBT+ identified editor wants to seek out confronting someone who is deliberately misusing Wikipedia to be offensive about trans people; our experience is that doing so is likely to lead to being accused of causing a two-party dispute and be the subject of immediate hostile counter-allegations. A failure of cases to make it to a discretionary sanction stage, is not evidence of Wikipedia's policy implementation working. My expectation is that given Arbcom's confirmation, it will become far easier to gain a consensus for the creation and improvement of guidelines that relate to civil discussion on Wikipedia for LGBT+ topics and issues, especially if external best practices such as GLAAD are used to inform and educate contributors to LGBT+ related topics. Though I am raising this request based on my related experiences in the past two years editing trans-related biographies and topics, I have named no other parties. This is a technical request, not one relating to an active dispute. I am confident Arbcom members are aware of relevant examples without having to call people out in this clarification. @Mendaliv: My request is based on reviewing https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=812091637#Sexology:_Motion_2 and the prior motion on the same page. I doubt that the original GG parties are directly relevant to this specific amendment, even if they might wish to make a helpful comment. I may be missing the point but naming them here seems overly wikilawyerish, probably.
@Masem: Sexology was specifically amended to apply to "all pages", not just articles, for the reasons you put forward. The focus here based on experience is more about article related POV comments that you infer, for example stating that a trans ideology exists during discussions, appears and can deliberately demean Wikipedia contributors, if not strictly stated in the context of directly quoting a source for an article about this topic rather than an editor making this statement in their "own voice". Even then, abusive quotes can be used abusively, so editors on these topics benefit from very clear Arbcom level directives about how DS can and should be interpreted (c.f. Arbcom Fram case, where use of the n-word should never happen casually in discussion space).
@Pyxis Solitary: If anyone wishes to create a trans ideology article, based on the anti-trans myths found in various anti-LGBT+ publications, that great, it benefits the encyclopaedia.
@AGK: If your intention is to restrict GG Discretionary Sanctions to article space and talk directly about articles, then this withdraws the motions agreed by Arbcom in Sexology which were amended to apply to all pages. For this to be true and enforced in this way (as currently it is not the community's interpretation of the existing DS as they apply to transgender related or any BLP page discussions), then Arbcom should consider a motion to make this explicit. Specifically this appears to mean that the Arbcom clerk's advice that the withdrawn Sexology motions are covered by GG is not the case. Obvious consequences of your statement, should Arbcom agree this as fact, is that enforcement requests based on Arbcom DS provide no protection from casual use of transphobic language, such as calling an openly trans woman Wikipedian a trans identified male, rather than a woman, or casually or repeatedly using Wikipedia discussions to promote the view that a gay agenda or a trans agenda exists, because anti-LGBT+ publications say so. For many Wikipedians, this is not a question of accepting free speech, but accepting casual transphobic language as the potential norm in Wikipedia discussions in a way that would never be acceptable with casual racist language or casual misogynist language.
@Mendaliv: Your assertion that I am failing to go to dispute resolution seems to ignore the fact that I am not in any current dispute needing dispute resolution. There are plenty of past cases I can point to of previous LGBT+ related cases where I have taken up dispute resolution, making your statement false whichever way it is read. Please focus on the case request, not hypothetical tangents. Your "7 million edits across all foundation projects" comment is unhelpful and appears to be an attempt to dismiss this request on the basis of my number of edits, which I fail to understand. --Fæ (talk) 17:05, 3 August 2019 (UTC) @EdChem: Your advice would be the equivalent of telling newbie LGBT+ contributors to "grow a thicker skin". It does not work, unchallenged bullies become bolder. Unless we choose to improve the hostile environment that exists today, Wikipedia will continue indefinitely as a publisher of lockerroom type transphobic and homophobic language which is protected as "humour" or "free speech". --Fæ (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2019 (UTC) @Greenrd: Being a trans person is not equivalent to being a Republican. A Republican being lobbied to change parties, is not equivalent to a trans person having to debate whether they have a right to exist, or being accused of being part of a "transgender ideology", just because they are alive. --Fæ (talk) 16:04, 4 August 2019 (UTC) @Vanamonde93: Your question was answered already, it is perfectly legitimate to expect those making statements in a clarification request have read the requestors section before repeatedly asking the same duplicated questions. Cut & paste from 4 paragraphs above: Your assertion that I am failing to go to dispute resolution seems to ignore the fact that I am not in any current dispute needing dispute resolution. If your question was hypothetical for future events, sure I may try it, if I want to be the target of hostile opposition research, yet again, but so far the opinions from the one Arbcom member are not encouraging that DS would be enacted rather than AE devolve into debate. As we have shifted to hypotheticals: given the choice for a trans woman observer, would you expect her to enter into an adversarial debate by reporting transphobic language on AE or ANI and risk becoming a target, or would she be better off writing secretly to WMF T&S? --Fæ (talk) 19:49, 4 August 2019 (UTC) @SilkTork: With regard to your opinions, how would that stop an editor dismissing and deriding another as a "gender terrorist
@Worm That Turned: I have perfectly good reason to be cautious as has been explained. Asking for clarification from either you or Risker about your off-wiki correspondence or coincidental actions, (i.e. on a related page with no edits in 2 years, then edited within hours of off-wiki correspondence is hard to presume in good faith is entirely improbable coincidence), so that I might contribute freely to an open request is not an attack against you or Arbcom. --Fæ (talk) 18:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC) @Sitush: You are correct, the quote should have been "diversity terrorist" which is more extreme language than I recalled.diff The reasoning that "gender warrior" might be a good thing, is virtually impossible to apply to calling someone any sort of terrorist, nor is "martyr" helpful. As a thought experiment, consider the repercussions if you were to argumentatively make the same allegations like this about an Arbcom member during a case. --Fæ (talk) 19:00, 5 August 2019 (UTC) @Risker: Please check your email to me in 2016, and the correspondence that you may have lost and have not mentioned here. Recall that you wrote to me, not the other way around. Your final email in 2016 was conciliatory, and gave me the very reasonable expectation that I would not be forced to enter into off-wiki correspondence with you again. I can provide a copy if you have deleted it. --Fæ (talk) 19:43, 5 August 2019 (UTC) @Andy Dingley: Please revisit your statement it makes demonstrably false claims about my motivation. This clarification is unrelated to the BC tribunal case, this was never in my mind as the BC tribunal case is completely unrelated to the issues of the use of transphobic language on Wikipedia by Wikipedians. Further this clarification request was created by me on 2 August 2019, while the article you link to was created by an indefinitely blocked user using a sockpuppet account on 3 August 2019, a day later. Further you are linking to sources which contain blatantly transphobic abuse and your remarks about these sources have been exhaustively addressed in detail as failing to meet the reliable source requirements of WP:BLP, with one of the sources you are defending containing hearsay which is under discussion at BLPN, a request that was posted over an hour before you chose to post to this Arbcom case. The Fiona Robertson twitter quote tangentially mentioned in an article not about the BC tribunal case is unrelated to the problematic hearsay allegations, Roberton was commenting on the BC tribunal case itself, nothing else, this is not evidence to support the inclusion of any other material other than Robertson's opinion about the BC tribunal case (which is remarkably tangential even for that). Your unnecessarily repeating the full legal name of a non-notable trans woman in the BC tribunal case, is "unhelpful" for Wikipedia and continuing repost these links to damaging hearsay in multiple forums is a matter of serious concern against WP:BLP which applies to this page as much as anywhere else. In no way does this censor factual and encyclopaedic material to understand the BC tribunal case, such as including the plaintiff's use of racist language reported in the press and raised as part of the case. In no way is this a threat, these are facts of policy. --Fæ (talk) 12:40, 6 August 2019 (UTC) @Greenrd: It has been stated clearly, repeatedly, unambiguously and accurately that You have made a personal allegation against me that there is a It is not a transgender "ideology", for any Wikipedian to pursue the enforcement of Wikipedia policies, nor is it an "ideology" for any Wikipedian to make statements of verifiable fact and logic. In Wikipedia's voice, trans women are women. A transgender ideology is not a verifiable fact, it is a populist myth promoted by anti-trans lobbyists. A Wikipedian using Wikipedia to promote or air their personal anti-trans views, rather than presenting verifiable evidence for article improvement, is misusing Wikipedia, breaking consensus agreed policies and breaching the website terms of use. It is not a personal attack, an ideology or a blockable offence to state these facts about Wikipedia. It is a verifiable fact, that the current Wikipedia editing environment is hostile to any Wikipedian seeking to enforce policies in the area of respectful treatment of transgender Wikipedians and transgender people generally. As an illustration, see this "joke" made today diff, this is normal for Wikipedia and any objections to it will be a cause for derision and an excuse to pile on abuse. On this topic, Wikipedians can and do suffer personal abuse, attacks, misgendering, misrepresentation, extensive opposition research and are consistently the target of off-wiki canvassing and harassment intended to shut them up and force them to go away. This is happening right now for this Arbcom Clarification request. Should Arbcom wish to consider an alternative clarification and want to discuss evidence, they should consider how that can be done without those supplying evidence becoming targets of coordinated off-wiki abusive campaigns clearly intended to silence minority voices. It is a fallacy to believe that requests like this are open to all members of the community. --Fæ (talk) 09:21, 10 August 2019 (UTC) @Greenrd: I am unclear why you want to double down. There is no argument here, there is no requirement for anyone to argue with you on Wikipedia to change your personal beliefs that a "trans ideology" exists, when it is simply an offensive anti-trans myth. You are consistently using Wikipedia to promote and air personal anti-trans views, rather than presenting verifiable evidence for article improvement. You are misusing Wikipedia, breaking consensus agreed policies and breaching the website terms of use. I am uninterested in what transphobic rubbish you want publish off-wiki, so long as you are not targeting and harassing Wikipedians, but none of what you have espoused in your Arbcom statement can possibly improve Wikipedia, it can only distress and drive away our tiny percentage of Wikipedia contributors who are openly identified transgender people. With anti-trans jokes, views and hounding being "normal for Wikipedia", and none of that highly visible anti-trans abuse in forums like ANI ever being the cause of sanctions or warnings because "free speech", then we may as well honestly explain to new editors that if they are transgender, the only safe way to contribute to this project is to go back in the closet, because they are not welcome here and the Usual Suspects (many of them being here for more than a decade) will happily be allowed to drive them off this project. --Fæ (talk) 11:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by Mendaliv (GamerGate)First a technical point: Given this is a request to clarify or amend the GamerGate case, I think it is necessary that the parties to that case be notified. Second: I don't believe this is a mere technical clarification, but may be a significant expansion of scope. The GamerGate case itself, after all, was explicitly scoped to the article Gamergate controversy and related articles including biographies (see WP:ARBGG FoF #1). I don't think Fae's point that the GG arbitration case superseded or "took over" the Sexology case is correct. I certainly don't find any indication of this in the casepage of either WP:ARBGG or WP:ARBSEX, but I admit I could be wrong and thus think some further explanation of this would be appropriate. I'll also note that the DS regime from the sexology case was rescinded in 2017. The clarifying note in ARBSEX that "Discretionary sanctions authorized in the GamerGate arbitration case, which may apply to this topic area, remain available." does not strike me as extending the GG DS regime to everything that the sexology case covered, but merely pointing out that articles previously covered by the sexology case which also fall under the GG arbitration case could still have discretionary sanctions applied under the GG case. I think the proper vehicle for this idea is not an ARCA-based motion, but a general sanctions regime as ratified by the community, or (failing that) a new arbitration case on LGBT+ issues. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 14:27, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
The expansion and consolidation of DS regimes revealed by MJL is shocking. This is not an appropriate use of the Arbitration Committee. The purpose of the Arbitration Committee is to end discrete disputes; it is retrospective in nature, and to an extent discretionary sanctions merely existed to provide a uniform means of ongoing control over areas of dispute while those disputes were ongoing. What is being contemplated here, and where discretionary sanctions are being used, is very prospective. What’s even stranger, is that these regimes are being consolidated into a case that made no evidentiary findings of fact related to sitewide discussion of gender. If you want to roll these things under the Gamergate arbitration case, the amendment must include new findings of fact. Otherwise this is policymaking, pure and simple. I have no doubt that the community will agree that issues of gender need to be handled in an appropriate way throughout the site. That is the community’s role in the absence of a discrete controversy with a finite scope. This is not the role of the Committee and is expressly prohibited by the arbitration policy. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 16:50, 2 August 2019 (UTC) What's important here is that the Committee's role is in dispute resolution: There must be a dispute, and it must be properly before the Committee. This is the case because the Committee adjudicates disputes, and adjudication is by definition a retrospective and remedial action. Rulemaking or legislation, on the other hand, is prospective and deals with factual issues either not yet developed or not particularized to the individual level. This is a problem commonly found in administrative areas, the distinction between adjudication and rulemaking, so it is not surprising that the Committee has run into this same problem. But let there be no mistake: When the Committee seeks to regulate all pages, all persons, or all future events, it is engaged in rulemaking. What Fæ proposes is rulemaking, and it is improper within the arbitration policy, which I suggest you all read along with my comments: First, the scope of arbitration is clear that it is "To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve". While other tasks and purposes are mentioned, these are all adjudicative in nature. This is coupled with the clear statement in the section on policy and precedent, which states, "The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced." These are not vehicles for creating new substantive rules, which is clearly the aim of this request. Regardless of intent—and I'm sure both Fæ and the members of the Committee have only the best intentions aimed at resolving what is clearly an important area—this Committee is not a rulemaking body. The community is the relevant rulemaker.
In light of the fact that the arbitrators commenting here have made multiple conflicting interpretations of policy, I am requesting a formal ruling on the following questions:
Thank you. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 03:58, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Masem (Gamergate)Fæ's concern is 100% valid. I was originally going to say though that trans-gendered issues didn't really apply to GG, but reading the discretionary sanctions about it: (i) The community Gamergate general sanctions are hereby rescinded and are replaced by standard discretionary sanctions, which are authorized 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., the concerns of ridiculing transgendered individuals seem to fall within b and c of this. So if an editor is going about clearly mocking a known transgender individual (including on-wiki editors), that should be stopped immediately. I question though if this really is appropriate for GG, because it is dealing with behavior that was not explored during GG. GG was more about disruptions on mainspace pages in the GG area, and extending to some gender-related disputes (individuals at the center of it). There were some behavior problems that were explored, but it was not for insulting other editors in the manner Fæ brings up (irrespective of the trans angle). Adding what Fæ has asked as an GG extension feels wrong. Even going back to the Sexology case, that was more about POV conflicts than editors demeaning other editors or people. So if the Sexology DS was still active, it would be wrong to add it there too. So I really feel this is a worthwhile statement that should be made to address this type of behavior, but not as part of the GG DS. I don't want to discourage Fæ from pursuring this type of principle elsewhere on en.wiki, just that I don't think adding it to a DS that is in the same ballpark is necessary the best way to do that. --Masem (t) 15:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
@Worm That Turned: I would assume that "gender warrior" is a similar slang as social justice warrior, which is generally derogatory. But it does depend on context as your example suggests a positive approach. --Masem (t) 13:55, 5 August 2019 (UTC) Maybe the larger problem here is how DS are meant to be used. I always took DS to apply to the set of article/other spaces that are defined by the DS, with respect to the problems identified in the FOF and other remedies from the associated ArbCom case. So, GG being principally issues with edit warring and POV pushing, would mean that edit warring and POV pushing on "gender-related pages" is covered by it, but not other types of behavior problems (of which standard community actions should be sought). The way some here are suggesting, these DS would be for any perceived infraction on those pages. Otherwise, we start getting into the realm that multiple DS can apply to a single page (eg Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could potentially fall under both AP2 and GG due to her political support of LBGTQ). --Masem (t) 14:35, 8 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by MJL@Fæ, Mendaliv, GoldenRing, and Masem: The request would no doubt fall under Gamergate. This was the premise for the request I made earlier this year which resulted in this motion. It brought Manning (which dealt with issues related to transgender identity) unequivocally within the scope of Gamergate. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:04, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
I sometimes feel like there is this magical aura that follows longtime established users around. I just quite don't get it. I'll say something and am lucky if one or two people respond to me. Fæ posts here and suddenly this DS regime is a BIG DEAL. Nearly five times the amount of people have responded to this request compared to my own. Am I doing something wrong here? What did I miss? Here are the things I've said a few months ago:
Okay, now that it is understood what my involvement has been in this area; let me explain what should happen: Please everyone just read Manning.
That now being said...
Thank you all. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 04:40, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Sitush
Statement by JohnuniqI wondered what the background for this was. It appears to be Meghan Murphy where there are disputes over the degree to which the person or her blog should be described as trans-exclusionary radical feminist or TERF. The talk page shows the dispute including Pyxis Solitary saying "she's against trans ideology" which caused Fæ to respond with diff saying "trans ideology" was an attack on all trans people which, if continued, would warrant sanctions under WP:ARBGG. The issue of whether mentioning a "trans ideology" among off-wiki activists is a sanctionable attack should not be decided in a clarification request. Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 3 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by EvergreenFirI support this motion. The "Manning naming dispute" case made it clear long ago that transgender topics are an area with disruption. The GG case included issues of gender identity as well (see histories of discussions related to Quinn and Wu). Discussing that GG covers gender, cisgender and transgender, would be useful. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by Pyxis SolitaryThis comment addresses the mention of my name in the Statement by Johnuniq regarding the Meghan Murphy BLP talk page discussion: First sentence description TERF vs radical feminist. Allow me to shed all the light from/to Pyxis Solitary: By the way, the same IP editor that personally attacked me in the article, and accused me of being a "TERF" in the talk page, attacked me again with a bogus statement attributed to me with a fake signature — which was deleted by editor Fæ before I returned to the discussion. And of course, IP editor left another accusation in my talk page. Pyxis Solitary yak 06:15, 3 August 2019 (UTC); (edited) 08:09, 3 August 2019 (UTC); (edited: emphasis mine) 13:47, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Thryduulf (re: GamerGate)That MJL I do still think that it would be a good idea to have a new case, Gender-related disputes covering
This would be quite a large case, which the Committee probably has not got capacity for while Fram is ongoing and Palestine-Israel 4 is pending so I suggest adding it to the queue rather than opening immediately. In the mean time, I would strongly encourage Fæ and everyone else to try and resolve any disputes using the current available methods (AN/I, AE, etc) so that there is good, recent evidence to feed into the review. Thryduulf (talk) 11:43, 3 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by Vanamonde (GamerGate)
Statement by JzGJudging by comments elsewhere and recent edit history, this is not a good faith request for clarification, it is an attempt to use arbitration sanctions to enforce Fae's views of how a subject should be covered, in a context where numerous attempts to do this via normal Wikipedia processes are failing. Guy (Help!) 17:29, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by EdChem (GamerGate)
I would also like to clarify that, in referring to my own experiences, I was not thinking solely of on-wiki experiences, or even only online experiences. The first time I had homophobic abuse screamed at me was shocking and a little frightening – and would have been more so had I been alone or in vulnerable circumstances – but I quickly decide that ignoring the event was the wisest course of action. It was illegal, no doubt, but pursuing it was not worth my time, nor was given this individual the satisfaction of having provoked a response. I would encourage Fæ to consider whether there are times when silence is the most eloquent response, where providing a response is not worth the time or effort involved, and whether dismissing something as not worth pursuing is actually a more dignified and effective way to communicate that it isn't worth supplying oxygen to, either by replying or by seeking redress. EdChem (talk) 02:22, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Beyond My KenI concur with Guy and EdChem, and I thank EdChem for their reasonable and rational statement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by GreenrdI have some familiarity with the nature and content of typical political debates between trans-exclusionary radical feminists, trans people and their allies, and people somewhere "in the middle" - and they are very much political debates, let's be clear about that. Regarding process and venue, this proposal, due to its highly contentious nature and tangential relation to the GamerGate case, is an entirely inappropriate use for the clarification process; as others have opined, consensus should be sought in the community or it should be brought to full arbitration, if desired. As a political activist myself, I perceive this proposal as something that would have the effect of giving one political faction special privileges in terms of advocacy on Wikipedia, even as other factions have their freedoms restricted by this proposal, or indeed already have their freedoms restricted by long-lasting community mores, which I believe would be fundamentally unfair. There are a range of views within the community on using Wikipedia for advocacy or agenda-driven purposes, from strong opposition on the one hand, to a feeling that by e.g. unabashedly promoting the achievements of women and feminists, one is improving Wikipedia, to (e.g. on Israel/Palestine) perhaps a resigned acceptance of the fact that many contributors will have strong views one way or another and the participation of people with multiple perspectives actually helps to create balanced articles. Indeed one can take different views on this sort of agenda-driven work on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature of the changes and the degree to which they act to introduce imbalance into the encyclopedia, or to correct pre-existing imbalances in the encyclopedia. What we shouldn't have on Wikipedia is any privileging of people belonging to particular political factions based on what political faction they belong to, as opposed to based on the behaviour of individuals within those factions and whether it comports with Wikipedia's mission. Also, what is really not acceptable in the content of this proposal is that it does, I feel, conflate the identification of political factions, potential sources of bias, and organised activity, with conspiracy theorising (which often brings connotations of insanity, or at least eccentricity). This conflation is rather like if someone were to say that to claim that some Republican supporters might have a bias in relation to articles about Republican politicians, and to make a big deal about the fact that an editor is a Republican political activist and spends a lot of time advocating for Republican political causes, is unacceptable prejudice against Republicans. That would be ridiculous, because the exact same thing could be said about Democrats and articles about Democrat politicians, so it's an instance of a more general point that's not at all specific to any one political party or faction.- greenrd (talk) 15:05, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
Clarification by RiskerI have not read this request except for the reference to me in the (currently) last paragraph of Fae's statement above, and have no comment on any suggestions being made by any editors about any historical cases, their enforcement, or whether or not anything needs to be clarified about them. Thus, I have retitled this section as a "clarification" since I'm not really making a statement about the matter before the Arbitration Committee. I did not *directly* contact Fae about anything, via email or otherwise, until after Fae emailed me at my personal email address. Instead, what I did was respond to a suppression request from Fae that was received in the OTRS queue more than 12 hours prior to my reading it, and responded by OTRS email asking for clarification about what edits Fae felt should fall under the suppression policy. Fae then emailed me directly at my personal email address (which is not included in the OTRS emails) accusing me of having a conflict of interest and requesting that I pass the suppression request to another oversighter. Arbitrators who follow the Oversight OTRS queue will be well aware that a ticket that has been untouched for more than 12 hours is extremely rare, particularly when other requests have been addressed in that timeframe. I responded to the personal email from Fae instructing them to respond directly to the ticket and not to email me personally; I copied my response to the Oversight mailing list so that other oversighters would know what was going on, and arbitrators who follow that list can read the discussion there. It is my understanding that another oversighter has "taken over" the ticket, and their first question to Fae was to ask them to clarify what was perceived to be suppressible on the page linked in the request. To the best of my knowledge, what Fae refers to as a "conflict of interest" is in fact that I was an arbitrator in the 2012 case whose remedies including their being banned from English Wikipedia; I was also one of the arbitrators who supported the motion lifting Fae's ban (with conditions) about nine months later. To the best of my recollection, I don't think I've commented or participated in any other disciplinary activities related to Fae. I have, however, revision-deleted, deleted and suppressed outing and personal attacks directed at Fae on several occasions since that time; and I have, on at least one recent occasion, publicly and directly agreed with Fae's position in a discussion on the Wikimedia-L mailing list. In order to explain to my fellow oversighters why Fae might think I had a conflict of interest, I referred to the 2012 case and 2013 motion; while looking at the decision again to ensure I had my facts and timing right, I noticed there was a link missing to the motion that allowed Fae to return to editing Wikipedia in 2013, and I fixed that. I do not believe that I have any kind of conflict of interest with respect to Fae, although it is possible that Fae has a conflict of interest when it comes to me. It is a little odd for anyone to suggest that conflict of interest on an oversight ticket should be determined by who sent the ticket, rather than what the request actually was. I've recused based on the nature of the request on multiple occasions. It would be bad practice to allow those requesting suppression to pick and choose who deals with their request; if they send it to the list, they're going to get the oversighter who is willing and able to respond. The entire point of oversight is to identify and remove problem content *as quickly as possible*, and that isn't possible when the requestor decides they don't want Oversighter A or B or C to deal with the issue. Regardless, none of this has anything to do with the actual clarification request, and is only provided here because there's no other suitable forum for me to point out that, despite Fae's best efforts, I have nothing to do with this matter. Risker (talk) 17:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Andy DingleyGamerGate was a low point for the Internet, and indeed WP. If anything good did come from it, at least WP took a fairly strong position in opposition to it, as represented by this arbitration. Clearly the request here is inspired by recent activity around a number of pages involving Jessica Yaniv: Jessica Yaniv genital waxing case, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jessica Yaniv genital waxing case, the imminent Yaniv v. Various Waxing Salons, British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, Meghan Murphy et al. The questions are: does the GamerGate arbitration, and should the GamerGate arbitration, extend that far? My first impression is that Fae is using GamerGate as a BLUDGEON to stifle any discussion about Jessica Yaniv. All the usual tactics are rolled out, the warning boxes on user talk: pages[116], the repeated stripping of sources and content from an article during an AfD; the denigration of sources used; the description of the Vancouver Sun as a mere 'tabloid' because the word tabloid (used as a contrast) appears in that article's lead[117]; the repeated accusation that other editors have made an allegation[118] which they have never made; the aspersions cast at other editors for being 'uncollegial' and then immediately using 'colleague' instead as an implication of sock- or meatpuppeting; hatting great sections of Talk: debate; riding two horses in claiming that only one narrow waxy issue is relevant within a far broader story, then claiming BLP1E applies; and of course, hiding behind BLP as the unchallengable excuse for any position held. So far, so much as usual. I don't expect WP to keep this article (at least for the near future). BLP will see to that, and as yet, few of the defensible broadsheet sources have covered it. Although I'll be amazed if there isn't a significantly different situation in a few months. It's a most unusual situation, as it has flipped the usual allegiances and political standpoints end-for-end. Those who have previously advocated for transgender politics are finding themselves torn between the coverage, as highly negative as it is, or deleting it.[119][120] Jessica Yaniv is, quite literally, the taser-threatening[59:34 in Yaniv's own last night's twitter debate with Blaire] transwoman in the girls' changing room[Yaniv's November 2018 Tweet photos] that the TERFs warned us of. Fae evidently sees no such conflict: in Fae's mind (as expressed here), transphobia is transphobia, and negative coverage of one transwoman is an attack on all of them. Now that's an honourable position and I respect it a great deal, but I do think they're backing the wrong side here. Jessica Yaniv is just not someone who's actions are at all defensible. And yet BLP is still in effect and WP is not a channel of investigative journalism. So should GamerGate apply? Does GamerGate apply? Well per GamerGate#Remedies "(b) any gender-related dispute or controversy," it would indeed seem so. I was shocked to read this. I've avoided GamerGate so far, as a depressingly negative issue in all areas. But to find that the sanctions do indeed claim to be so far-reaching in their scope? That's a terrible idea. It loses track of the concrete problem at GamerGate, it tries to solve all the world's ills in one line. And today, its main result seems to be giving Fae a BLUDGEON for pushing their PoV into these articles, to suppress coverage of someone, who Fiona Robertson, the SNP's National Women’s and Equalities Convener has described as a "female predator".[121] I do not believe that the GamerGate sanctions have ever been intended to support the actions and deniability of female predators, and we should not encourage their use for such. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:42, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by Simonm223I am not surprised the JY related pages ended up tied into this discussion, though my understanding is that this arbitration request was established because of a separate WP:BLP dispute over how to handle naming of people who have been identified in the media as TERFS. That said, I would strongly support the assertion that the JY related pages fall under the Gamergate discretionary sanctions. I say this because, frankly, with some of the egregious WP:BLP behaviour I've seen in the course of the JY discussion, extra administrator attention and extra strictness about norms would be very helpful. This has included:
And so on. Frankly, the fact that we're addressing a POV Fork attack page at AfD rather than speedy deleting it is already a bit galling and suggests enhanced oversight of this article is necessary. As such, I dispute Andy Dingley's assertion that treatment of gender issues outside the bounds of Gamergate is outside the spirit of the previous Arbcom ruling and hope that, if any good can come of this rather convoluted request for clarification, it's additional oversight of the BLP minefield that currently exists here. Simonm223 (talk) 13:05, 6 August 2019 (UTC) Edited to add that I don't disagree at all with Newyorkbrad and Aquillion here about the confusing nature of the nomenclature at play here. My concern is that the tool of arbcom enforced sanctions is necessary in this space; it's not that they need to be tied specifically to GamerGate. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 6 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by NewyorkbradThis comment is not about the substance of the request, but concerns the procedural confusion and nomenclature. It is causing confusion, and probably will continue to, if every discussion of allegedly poor editing in this topic area involves a citation to "the GamerGate case" or "GamerGate discretionary sanctions." Many topics relating to sexuality, including references to trans persons, are very remote from the topic of GamerGate. Indeed, some of the editors who edit on those topics may never have even heard of GamerGate. They are going to be unnecessarily confused when they receive a DS alert and, in addition to having to absorb all the other rules and procedures governing discretionary sanctions, they also find themselves puzzling over what "GamerGate" is and why it is coming up in a seemingly unrelated context. The initial version of what became the discretionary sanctions for BLPs was adopted in an arbitration case called "Footnoted quotes." Needless to say, the overall topic of BLPs had little to do with the dispute over whether long quotations should be included in footnotes or not. People involved in BLP-related editing disputes did not easily understand when the "Footnoted quotes" ArbCom decision was cited to them. Ultimately, the Committee resolved that confusion by renaming the name for the BLP sanctions category to something more comprehensible. It might make sense to do something similar here. As I finish typing this comment, I realize that it may not be directly related to the clarification request, so if the Committee wishes to treat it as a separate suggestion and discuss it elsewhere, I have no objection. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:15, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by AquillionAgree with Newyorkbrad that it might be best to have a separate case-name for gender-related stuff, but it's worth pointing out that there are a few pages clearly covered by GG general sanctions that wouldn't be obviously covered by gender-related ones, so just renaming wouldn't necessarily work. If possible it might be best to split it into two separate discretionary sanctions with their own notices etc. Definitely using the GG general sanctions notice for gender stuff is going to be confusing to users, though, and will get more confusing going forwards as GG itself fades into the past. --Aquillion (talk) 17:16, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Statement by GuerilleroIgnoring the merits and just addressing the procedural issues that NYB brings up, I am against renaming cases. The title has meaning when the case is accepted and post hoc renaming breaks that meaning. Unlike Footnoted Quotes which had no active sanctions, Gamergate has plenty of active sanctions that will continue to be enforced for many years. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by Nblund
Statement by JJENoting here that Fæ has just been banned by the community from commenting on human sexuality-related topics, so they probably can no longer comment on this clarification request, or at least are unlikely to. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:11, 12 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by DeryckHarassment is a big problem on Wikipedia and we need to tackle it seriously. However, Fæ's proposal for ArbCom, that any wording that "implies [...] an agenda" or is "anti-trans" should be immediately punished as a DS violation, is unenforceable unless ArbCom is prepared to publish a glossary of banned language. The very fact that this is a contentious area where the use of language is itself contentious means that a non-expert in transgender issues cannot be expected to know the boundaries of civil discourse without stumbling upon someone's sensitivities first. I echo Sitush's comment about unintentional offence being met with heavy sanctions, and Newyorkbrad's comment about the breadth of this DS area beyond the GamerGate topic causing confusion to uninitiated editors working on articles relating to LGBT+ issues. Deryck C. 19:11, 13 August 2019 (UTC) If any editor directs trans-phobic language against another editor, that should be treated as a WP:NPA violation with utmost severity, irrespective of the GamerGate / transgender issues DS. Deryck C. 16:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by AReaderOutThatawayI have to concur with Mendaliv that this request would be a prospective, pre-emptive misuse of ArbCom. Worse, the entire notion is subjective. We've seen repeatedly that certain editors (including the filer of this requests, whose topic-ban from human sexuality broadly construed has been reinstated in the interim) have novel and activistic ideas of what might qualify as "transphobic", and even "mis-gendering". E.g., it's been seriously proposed by some of these editors that if Editor A makes up a fake word like "zerm" and declares this to be their pronoun that other editors should be sanctionable if they use singular they or take any other, generally acceptable, approach to gender neutrality or pronoun avoidance. This is not ForcedSpeechPedia, nor FarLeftPostmoderistLanguageReformPedia, nor MakeEveryoneOnMySideFeelBetterThroughPoliticalCorrectionPedia. The only expansion we need to the WP:AC/DS authorized for this entire range of topics is faster topic-banning for abuse of Wikipedia as a soci-political lobbying platform. The modern US politics topic is almost getting that locked-down already, and the encyclopedic result is better, even if some far-to-one-side-or-the-other editors have a sore metaphorical booty about getting muzzled on the topic. — AReaderOutThataway t/c 00:24, 19 August 2019 (UTC) Statement by May His Shadow Fall Upon YouI'm very late to the game, but since the request is still open, I thought I'd chime in. It should be denied for the following reasons. (1) As stated above, this is prospective and not remedial, and therefore not something ArbCom should do. (2) It's unclear as to what, exactly, is transphobic speech. There are some examples that are patently obvious but given that language is evolving and what can be considered "transphobic" is often highly debatable, this is basically a minefield. (3) It's unclear what the practical ramifications of "shall be considered an immediate breach of the discretionary sanction" would be. The key word in discretionary sanctions is "discretionary." So now it would be mandatory sanctions? In short, I don't see how the current DS is inadequate in any way. May His Shadow Fall Upon You Talk 16:11, 4 September 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. GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
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.
GamerGate Rename (February 2021)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. Initiated by Barkeep49 at 01:26, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Statement by {other-editor}Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this proposed motion as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should or should not accept this rename, plus thoughts on possible names GamerGate: Clerk notes
GamerGate: Arbitrator views and discussion
Motion to rename GamerGate discretionary sanctionsThe Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate discretionary sanctions are renamed to "Gender and sexuality". The index of topics with an active discretionary sanctions provision will be updated with the new title, but previous references to the GamerGate decision do not need to be updated. The central log page of discretionary sanctions, however, should be updated for the current year. For prior years the new name should be noted along with the old one. The rename of the GamerGate sanctions to Gender and sexuality is only for clarity in reference, and does not invalidate any previous action or pending sanctions taken under the provisions of this case.
Motion: Remedy transfer to Gender and sexuality shell caseIn order to promote consistency and reduce confusion, the arbitration clerks are directed to create a new arbitration case page under the name Gender and sexuality, with the following sole remedy: "Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people." For the avoidance of doubt, GamerGate is considered a gender-related dispute or controversy for the purposes of this remedy. Clause (i) of Remedy 1.1 of the GamerGate case ("Discretionary sanctions") is rescinded. Sanctions previously issued in accordance with Remedy 1.1 of the GamerGate case will from this time on be considered Gender and sexuality sanctions. This motion does not invalidate any action previously taken under the GamerGate discretionary sanctions authorization. In order to preserve previous clarifications about the scope of these discretionary sanctions:
The index of topics with an active discretionary sanctions provision will be updated with the new title, but previous references to GamerGate need not be updated. The arbitration enforcement log, however, should be updated for the current year. For prior years, the new name should be noted along with the old one. The arbitration clerks are also directed to update templates and documentation pages with the new name as appropriate. This motion should be recorded on the case pages of the GamerGate case, the new Gender and sexuality case, the Manning naming dispute case, and the Interactions at GGTF case.
Enacted - Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 23:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
GamerGate Rename: Implementation notesClerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 23:34, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Community discussion
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.
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