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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by L235 (talk | contribs) at 03:30, 12 August 2020 (→‎Motion: Climate Change (Hipocrite): enact). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Requests for clarification and amendment

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

  • Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
  • Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).

To file a clarification or amendment request: (you must use this format!)

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  4. Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
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Amendment request: Climate change

Initiated by Hipocrite at 12:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Climate change arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Hipocrite topic-banned


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



Information about amendment request
  • Hipocrite topic-banned
  • Termination


Statement by Hipocrite

I have successfully not edited this website for over 1 year at this point, and have, to first order, not edited for over 4 years. I would like this stain removed from my record going forward. I have no present intention to edit this website, but if I were to edit again, I would not, in the future, be nearly as combative with people I disagreed with - instead relying on the wisdom of crowds, as opposed to feeling sole ownership to do the right thing. I have successfully demonstrated this by not editing in large bulk, for the past many years. Over the past 10 years, I have become 10 years more mature and realised that this stuff is mostly meaningless anyway. The one block I received as a result of this sanction was determined to be in error - [1]. I will respond to any direct questions anyone has for me, but otherwise, leave it in your good judgement. Hipocrite (talk) 12:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SoWhy: The evidence presented of my not editing for years demonstrates my ability to not get involved and/or walk away from conflict, which was the key failure I believe I needed to fix a decade ago. While I currently have no intention of editing, that might change - however, I'm not very excited to edit with an albatross around my neck. You can review my edits post the case for 5+ years of semi-active participation - I am in no way saying that I did not edit at all - noting that in those 5 years I was not blocked once, while never requesting this restriction be modified. Hipocrite (talk)
@Joe Roe: I don't mean to be smarmy or hypocritical, but you'd review the case if I merely said "I'd like to edit climate change articles again?" Can do. "I'd like to edit climate change articles again, if that's the only way I can get this topic ban lifted." I will pledge to make 15 good non-controversial edits to climate change articles as soon as the topic ban is lifted - here's the first edit - in the "Discovery" section of Global_warming, the first reference to Edme Mariotte refers to them only by Mariotte. Alternatively, the reference to Svante Arrhenius uses his full name. I would attempt to normalise this to full name first time, last name future times unless there's a failure to be clear (S. Arrhenius if there's also an A. Arrhenius). If there's push back, I'd try to go the other way. If there's further pushback, I'd just leave it in the non-normalised state it's in. I continue to have no intention to get in any arguments about Climate Change, regardless of the abject wrongness of anyone else. Best wishes. Hipocrite (talk) 10:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Climate change: Clerk notes

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

Climate change: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • If you have not edited at all, what evidence should we have to consider that the topic ban is no longer necessary? Also, if you have no intention of further editing, what would be the point of formally removing a remedy? In general, I don't think there is a point to repeal a remedy for editors who are not interested in returning to editing and in this case in particular the very fact that editing ceased means there is no evidence to judge whether the remedy is still required. Regards SoWhy 12:56, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, I don't know – that case was in 2010, and while there's certainly not a lot of recent editing, Hipocrite does have a track record for us to view. I'd like to hear from some others, but I'd be willing to consider vacating it. Katietalk 15:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pretty much what Katie said, I'm open to the idea but would like to hear a bit more before making any decision. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not particularly interested in entertaining an appeal from someone for whom the point is some sort of "honor". Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 20:03, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless something unexpected is brought to our attention soon, I would grant the request. Ten years is a long time under any circumstances and certainly with respect to this topic-area. (By way of disclosure, although it's not especially relevant now, I was the only 2010 arbitrator who thought the sanction was probably too severe in the first place.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:10, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support vacating the old remedy absent evidence it remains necessary. –xenotalk 17:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you don't even intend to return to editing, isn't this a bit of a waste of time? You can not edit just as effectively with a topic ban than without. I think we should dismiss this request for now and look at it again if/when Hipocrite actually wants to edit climate change-related articles. – Joe (talk) 08:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The appeal has shown that the restriction is no longer necessary, and while the net effect to the encyclopedia seems the same regardless of whether the restriction is active or not, it remains that the continued restriction does bother the appellant, and thus I see a convincing case to remove it. Maxim(talk) 12:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Motion: Climate Change (Hipocrite)

The restriction imposed on Hipocrite (talk · contribs) by Remedy 14 of the Climate change case ("Hypocrite topic-banned") is hereby lifted.

For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 2 arbitrators abstaining, 4 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 03:30, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support
  1. As no longer necessary. –xenotalk 12:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per my comment above. Maxim(talk) 18:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per my comment above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  4. While I fully understand the position of the arbs who think this isn't necessary, I'm generally in favor of lifting older restrictions if there is no demonstrable need to keep them. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Per my comments above. Edit wisely, Hipocrite. Katietalk 21:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  6. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose


Abstain
  1. Per my and SoWhy's comments above. – Joe (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per above. Regards SoWhy 08:25, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Genetically modified organisms

Initiated by ProcrastinatingReader at 21:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Genetically modified organisms arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#1RR_imposed


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



Information about amendment request
  • That the scope of the 1RR remedy be changed to "genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed"


Statement by ProcrastinatingReader

Apologies in advance for the upcoming wikilawyering. In the GMO case, in 2015, the Committee authorised DS and 1RR with the same scope, "all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, agricultural biotechnology, and agricultural chemicals, broadly construed". That was amended in this motion, as a result of a clarification request, and the scope was narrowed to "all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed." That motion only changed the scope for the DS; the 1RR remedy retains the old scope. I suppose if one wanted to wikilawyer this, the 1RR remedy currently has a broader scope than the DS itself. I'm assuming that this was an oversight, rather than intentional?

Statement by Kingofaces43

I was part of drafting both the original ArbCom and the clarification request language on the non-arb editor/subject matter expert side of things. To clarify for ProcrastinatingReader, the second motion did not functionally narrow the DS. It just clarified that yes, agricultural companies related to the locus of the dispute, genetically modified organisms and/or pesticides, were included in the DS. There was no intended change in scope, just tweaking the wording to prevent wikilawyering on scope that as going on at the time. "Agricultural biotechnology" that was also dropped and just treated as being lumped in with GMO in terms of meaning assuming broadly construed would handle the rest. "Commercially produced agricultural chemicals" was basically added to avoid a really WP:BEANS situation of someone saying water was covered by the DS. In short, a lot of care went into clarification on precise wording as opposed to scope changes.

I'd also be curious where ProcrastinatingReader came across this in terms of if there's an area that needs to be looked at further where this became an actual issue, or if they're just being preemptive. I haven't seen anything pop up on my watchlist, so I'll definitely be glad if there isn't a fire to put out.

Functionally, there's no real difference between the two right now since the motion clarifies that the companies are part of the "broadly construed" language of the original, but that also means there's no harm in updating the 1RR language to match the motion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Genetically modified organisms: Clerk notes

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

Genetically modified organisms: Arbitrator views and discussion

Genetically modified organisms: motion

Remedy 2 ("1RR imposed") of Genetically modified organisms is amended to read as follows:

Editors are prohibited from making more than one revert per page per day on any page relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed and subject to the usual exemptions.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support
  1. As proposer. – Joe (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The reason for the amendment is to match the scope of 1RR with the scope of the discretionary sanctions covering the same subject area. –xenotalk 12:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per the request above and per Xeno. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Per above. Regards SoWhy 19:30, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Katietalk 21:22, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:53, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Maxim(talk) 13:57, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  8. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Amendment request: Unban decision

Initiated by North8000 at 14:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=756686514#Motion_regarding_North8000
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=756686514#Motion_regarding_North8000


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



Information about amendment request
  • Remove all restrictions. I believe that the older case restrictions were replaced by incorporation into this, but if not, then them too.


Statement by North8000

Request for removal of older Arbcom-placed restrictions.

I have topic bans on tea party movement, gun control, the homophobia article, and post 1932 american politics and a limitation to one account. Most of my restrictions originated in the 2013 tea party movement 2014 gun control cases and the newest (american politics) was placed in 2016 as a sort of “add on” condition when I came back. All were appeal able starting in mid-2017 but I’m just first asking now. I learned and wiki-evolved an immense amount from the entire process, as well as from time and experience. The newest event that any of these were based on was over 6 years ago.

Since (2016) I’ve been active in Wikipedia in wide ranging areas with an additional 12,000+ edits (now 53,000+ total) in article creation & improvement, GA reviews, helping folks out, and very active at NPP / new article curation, policy and guideline page discussions and a range of other areas which provide a diverse “proving out”. . This has all been with zero issues and zero drama of any type. This has not been due to any of the restrictions, it’s just how I roll throughout that period and now. I’m requesting that you remove of all of the restrictions to give me a clean slate. The “clean slate” aspect is more important to me than any restrictions in particular. Thanks for your consideration and of course I'd be happy to answer any questions.North8000 (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

responses

  • I've treated libertarianism articles as political science, not American politics. That was not an edit war, and Davide King and I respect and compliment each other and value each other's presence and he has thanked me I'd estimate 40 times for my edits. The extraction and characterization of this as something else says much.North8000 (talk) 19:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Black Kite and others; my view and basis then was that phobia means phobia and that anything else was a then-neologism. But I left voluntarily and never went back even when my promised 1 year was up and no longer had even a self-imposed restriction. Also I no longer want to and don't participate in high-drama debates such as that. I also don't want to ever edit the homophobia article; after all of these years (that was 8 years ago) I just want to have a clean slate. North8000 (talk) 10:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've considered it to be a mark of impartiality when, for the sake of the article, I disagree with folks who hold the same general real-world POV as my own, and that article was one of those. Also, my view would be the opposite now compared to then due to evolution in the usage of the term over the 8 years. North8000 (talk) 13:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • GorillaWarfare On the Libertarian article, I think I screwed up, but I was treating libertarianism articles as political science rather than politics. Also, the main discussion is at an article that is clearly about political science topic in general but then moved a bit into the "in the US article" and I followed it there and my edit was suggesting keeping it out of there, for other reasons. In hindsight it was a blunder. Also, I still have little experience with that whole general discretionary sanctions area which defined it. That restriction was a proposed add on when I came back which I agreed to, easily, because I never was active on such articles and so also also had no history of issues there. I think that having such an extremely broad restriction (from everything covered by discretionary sanctions) in an area which was just an add-on and not due to past issues supports my request being a reasonable one. North8000 (talk) 02:24, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Springee, I've not requested anyone to weigh in here; I've not even mentioned this on my talk page. I don't know the protocol for this page. I've had 12,000+ diverse edits of pleasant interactions since 2016 and would be confident of the results to ping the last 10 or 200 editors that I've interacted with.North8000 (talk) 02:35, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Xeno, IMHO the common meanings are different, and also the IMO nature of what happens to those in Wikipedia is very different. If I didn't think so I would have been coming here 3 years ago. Nevertheless, I think that following that one political science discussion when it started spilling to that so-titled artcle was a blunder. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re: RFC on source reliability at RSN noticeboard. Practically everything in the US has some connection to US politics. "some connection to" does not equal "IS". The RFC wording is at the top where it should be, and that was what I was discussing, and even then just on a structural problem. The wording indicated was not it or there. North8000 (talk) 02:16, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

The committee should reject vacating North8000's topic ban on Homophobia. Although it was eight years ago, his contributions there were entirely disruptive and wasted a great deal of editor's time.[2][3] There is no reason to believe that North8000 has some unique perspective or skill that will benefit this fully developed article. The risk greatly outweighs any potential reward.

At this point, I have no opinion about whether the Tea Party topic ban should remain. Regarding gun control and post-1932 American Politics, I can only say that that topic area has settled down quite a bit in the past few years as a direct result of several editors having been topic banned and editing restrictions having beed imposed on several articles. I may have more to add later. - MrX 🖋 17:44, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Relatively recent edit warring on an American politics article does not help the case:[4]
  • These six edits were violations of the gun control topic ban: [5]; Warning:[6]. (To my knowledge, North8000 never responded.) - MrX 🖋 18:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Springee

I have only limited engagement with North8000 but I've seen no issues between them and other editors. The tbans are 8 years old, if they haven't caused trouble since I think its safe to assume they have learned better ways to deal with editorial disagreements. If problems return it's not like the tban's can't be reinstated. In cases like this we should always err on the side of assuming good faith. Springee (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Follow up comment: I'm sorry to see this request has received limited comments. Remembering that the reason why tbans are put in place is to protect Wikipedia, not as a punishment, I'm seeing a clean block history for the last 4 years. This certainly isn't an case where one could argue blocks are obviously needed and the bad behavior continued in other parts of Wikipedia. At what point does a protective tban simply become punitive? What is the risk in erring on the side of unblocking? Worst case, bad behavior resumes and the block returns. However, if the tban is really no longer needed, if the editor really has learned from their mistakes, then this is a punitive block. We can never know for certain what would have happened but it's easy to reverse a tban if behavior warrants. We can't return the time an editor was tbanned if it turns out the ban was not needed. This isn't an editor asking just 6 months after the tban was instated. This is 44 months later and is almost certainly more punitive than protective at this point. Springee (talk) 01:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Newslinger, I don't see how any of those can be considered a violation of AP2. In cases where there is some level of cross over between AP2 and another topic I think context and scope matters. For instance, an AP2 topic ban would apply to comments about Ronald Reagan's political work/life. It wouldn't apply to comments about his acting roles. Fox News was being questioned in part for politics but also for things like coverage of scientific topics, environmental/climate change topics etc. None of the cited edits are specific to Fox's political coverage. Really, I would be far more concerned if we were seeing confrontations in new topic areas. So far we have edits that look like they are not over the line (Fox News RfC) or over the line but mildly so (Libertarian). These are old topic bans. Nothing shown here is sufficient to say lifting the tbans would result in new disruptions. That should be the standard here because anything else means this is punitive rather than protective. Springee (talk) 20:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

I haven't much knowledge of the other topic-bans so I'm not going to opine about them, but I would definitely oppose lifting the topic ban on Homophobia, on which North8000's 266 talk page posts wasted vast amounts of other editors' time arguing for the article to be completely re-written to include a WP:FRINGE definition of homophobia (that using the word which includes -phobia denigrates opposition to homosexuality), and accused other editors of being "activists" [7]. He eventually exhausted everyone's patience (as an example, try this conversation. It's one article, there are 6m+ others. Black Kite (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newslinger

In June 2020, North8000 made three comments criticizing the highly-attended 2020 Fox News RfC after the discussion had been active for over two weeks:

  1. Special:Diff/964433983
  2. Special:Diff/964434623
  3. Special:Diff/964616404

Fox News, which is categorized under Category:Conservative media in the United States, is a contentious subject in the field of American politics, with active arbitration remedies on the Fox News article itself. One of the RfC questions was "Is Fox News reliable for US Politics?", and the RfC had been listed under the "Politics, government, and law" RfC category. I was not aware of this topic ban when I responded to the third comment. — Newslinger talk 20:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

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

Unban decision: Clerk notes

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

Unban decision: Arbitrator views and discussion

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