Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles/Evidence

Preliminary statement by S Marshall
Going to arbcom over this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the other avenues open to me have failed and I can't bring myself to drop it. Which makes me, I accept, part of the problem. The instructions for this page tell me to use diffs and links to convince Arbcom to take the case. I think the two diffs I've already provided are sufficient: Previous declined Arbcom case, closed on the grounds that arbitrators wished to give the (then newly-imposed) community sanctions the chance to work; and Most recent AN/I, in which there is a consensus that community sanctions have failed. I've named four editors. I could have named two or a dozen the actual case I ask you to take is to look in general at behaviour on the topic area.— S Marshall  T/C 17:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Response to Georgewilliamherbert

Contrary to Georgewilliamherbert I don't see why it would be necessary for Arbcom to go deeply into the history here. Yes, there's a colossal content dispute to solve but that can only be done via mediation, to which this Arbcom case is a necessary prelude. Yes, editors have got a little overexcited in the content dispute and there are conduct issues to address, but in fact what's going on here, as I see it, is about poor judgment rather than bad faith. I can't produce the kind of diffs that are likely to lead to drastic action on Arbcom's part. I hope and expect this case will lead to nothing more than a number of targeted, focused interventions of limited scope and some guidance on how it is and isn't appropriate to behave.— S Marshall T/C 20:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Response to SMcCandlish

It would be lovely if we could ask Arbcom to read the hundreds of thousands of words that have been spent on this topic, ponder them carefully and, in council, determine who's got the disruptive fringe agenda and rein them in. That would be fantastic. Brilliant. But it's also unrealistic. I mean, I hate the fact that there are people who assume I'm a POV-pushing undisclosed paid editor because I'm in frequent conflict with QuackGuru, and I particularly hate that this assumption is sometimes made by people who're normally less stupid than that. One of the things I've seriously considered asking Arbcom for is to look at my contribution history in detail and confirm that I personally am not a corporate advocate or shill. Assumptions of bad faith in this topic area are so rife that that's the single finding which would help me the most... But is that what Arbcom is for? Arbcom consists of volunteers with limited time and no content expertise. What we as participants actually have to do here is make a case using diffs, and the fact is that individual diffs won't show anything Arbcom can bite on except for breaches of WP:CIVIL in the heat of argument, and even there they've been relatively mild and attributable to frustration (on all sides). QuackGuru has been significantly less tendentious since he was placed under restrictions on other pages and all I can show in terms of recent diffs is that he often refuses to let me change the article even when those changes would be an unambiguous improvement. With CFCF all you can show are reverts because he doesn't add content and refuses to use the talk page, and he stays short of 3RR, so how can I pull out any diffs that'll interest Arbcom? What I can produce evidence of is that QuackGuru and CFCF have shown poor editorial judgment about content and sources. This kind of evidence is not going to lead to a dramatic intervention from Arbcom. As for these paid editors and corporate shills we keep hearing about... after being active in this topic area for a long time, I haven't seen them. I think this is the Wikipedian Red Scare: a thing everyone fears, is used to justify witch-hunts and to label people who hold the wrong opinions, but is all smoke and no fire.— S Marshall T/C 10:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Respose to Jytdog

QuackGuru's "berserking" (as you put it) is not just keeping the hobbyist advocates at bay. It's indiscriminately keeping everyone at bay, preventing good edits and bad edits alike. Note that once again, it's implied/assumed that everyone who disagrees with QuackGuru is WP:NOTHERE.— S Marshall T/C 09:34, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

My name's Stuart Marshall and I've been a Wikipedian for about ten years. I've never tried an e-cigarette. I quit smoking tobacco on my fortieth birthday using conventional NRT (gum and patches). I'm not a hobbyist, advocate or paid editor. I came across the e-cigarette article by accident: I close RfCs, of which I keep a log here. My closes have been on a random assortment of topics with no particular focus on medicine or vaping. My first involvement with e-cigarettes was on 22 December 2014 when I closed a RfC on the talk page. A month later on 21 January 2015, I closed a second RfC. In the process I looked at the article's structure and prose, both of which I saw and still see as defective and badly in need of improvement. The next day, I began a discussion on improvements to the lede which is now archived at Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 22, so I obviously stopped closing RfCs in the topic area then. I'm a disinterested Wikipedia editor who wants to improve our content. I've never smoked an e-cigarette and I never intend to. While editing this article I've often experienced accusations and allegations. For example, I've been told that I'm being intentionally disruptive by adding maintenance tags. It's frequently said that people who disagree with QuackGuru are shills, quacks, or charlatans (even in evidence presented to Arbcom)! When I try to discuss these accusations with people, they always say the allegation didn't mean me they always meant those other people over there, apparently  but this has happened so often that I feel I have to defend myself. I'm a good faith editor. I've only ever edited the main e-cig page. I've never read any of the spin-out articles and I don't know what's gone on there. I'd like for us to have an article that would be easily understood by a schoolkid who's considering trying vaping. Because of the poor readability of the article at the moment, this means a complete rewrite of many sections. I often begin proposals aimed towards achieving this on the talk page, but I'm usually unable to make any progress. I encounter problems of two kinds. The first is that CFCF tries to manage my contributions on the talk page, hatting or archiving them because I start or un-archive discussions about things he doesn't like (e.g. here and here or here and here). The second is that QuackGuru engages interminably with my contributions on the talk page but will never allow a substantial change to the article. This might seem to be a content dispute, but content disputes are resolvable when a person is willing to read evidence and argument, think, and change their position. QG won't do that. At first he responds intelligibly but if he feels threatened, he'll start to say preposterous things, such as all secondary sources are reliable; a few is a synonym for many; or else he'll go off on a defensive tangent. He rarely gives up and allows me to make a proposed edit. He also prefers to make all edits to the article himself, even so far as disagreeing with an edit I propose and then making the same edit himself. Then when I point out that he's done that he will respond with a total non-sequitur. If a discussion appears to be trending towards a change, QG will leap in and make a pre-emptive edit well before there's consensus even when specifically asked not to (1, 2, 3). Between them, CFCF and QuackGuru are making it impossible to use the article talk page to build consensus for improvements. Please could Arbcom make it possible to have a productive discussion. I need (1) to be allowed to say things there without them being pre-emptively archived or hatted, and (2) to know that editors will reply sensibly and be willing to change their position on the basis of evidence or reason. I suggest CFCF is placed under an editing restriction never to hat or archive topics on the talk page and never to make a revert without discussing it. I don't know how to deal with QG. In QuackGuru's defence I think the arbs might have heard his name before, and/or have regard to his block log and history of sanctions. So I'll pre-emptively state the case in QG's defence. This case is made on my talk page by User:KWW here, supported by User:Black Kite here: QuackGuru's behaviour is tolerated on Wikipedia because he's usually on what Wikipedians perceive as the right side of the debate: on acupuncture, for example, he's skeptical and follows mainstream scientists. If QG wasn't usually on what we Wikipedians see as the right side of the debate, he would long since have been site-banned (SMcCandlish disagrees but he's wrong; check QG's block log). The reason we'd have given for the site ban would have been behavioural: we'd have said he was tendentious. So there's a double-standard, where behaviour that would get some editors sanctioned is tolerated in others. But we need to have a double-standard in some fields where we're outnumbered by the cranks. QG's intransigence and obstructiveness springs from a genuine wish to keep our articles accurate and informative. We need to help him channel his enthusiasm to where it's needed, and empower him to revert bad faith additions to the encyclopaedia, while limiting his ability to obstruct genuine improvements. I invite ArbCom to consider remedies that will achieve that and not to decide he's too much trouble to keep around.


 * Response to Doc James

I've always been crystal clear that the article's problem is poor readability and I don't know how my words could possibly be taken any other way. I think Doc James is like CFCF in that he sees bad faith or advocacy where there's only disagreement, although Doc James' greater maturity and better judgment makes him easier to deal with.


 * Question to Yobol

I haven't checked all your diffs. Do any of them relate to the period since 1 April 2015 when discretionary sanctions were imposed?

Preliminary statement by QuackGuru
User:SMcCandlish stated that "There's a much more meaningful problem here, a campaign to keep genuinely reliable sources out of these articles, to push a POV against scientific coverage and treat this as a "lifestyle and culture" topic." The issues are far more complicated than one administrator can handle. It involves taking a look at far more than merely behaviour. QuackGuru ( talk ) 05:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

SPACKlick
Admin User:Bishonen warned SPACKlick to stop making personal attacks. SPACKlick disagreed it was an attack. SPACKlick wrote on the e-cigarette talk page: "It's almost like you're not competent to edit this page", "your ridiculous addition", "a ridiculously long caption", "it was pointy, tendentious or ownership", "you do not own this article", "You arrogantly inserted". SPACKlick wrote on the e-cigarette aerosol talk page "QuakGuru, whether or not particle size is medically relevant is OUTSIDE THE SCOPE of this article which is about the CHEMICALS WITHIN E-CIGARETTE VAPOUR. Particle size, is not relevant to what chemical a particle is. You're nuts" See here for a proposed topic ban. SPACKlick inappropriately shortened the lead from four paragraphs to two. SPACKlick made bold edits to delete well sourced text. User:Cloudjpk opposed the deletions. SPACKlick was warned for edit warring and was warned for removing text. See here for a 3RR violation. See here for a 3RR report. Response to SPACKlick: SPACKlick stated "Quack guru calls paraphrasing original research" Levelledout replaced sourced text with original research. The word "some" was WP:OR. It was not paraphrasing. QuackGuru tagged the OR and eventually removed the OR. SPACKlick stated "QG becomes very attached to things being in their own words in a WP:OWN esque way" The diffs presented by SPACKlick are 12. Please read the archived discussions, including Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 25 and Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 24. SPACKlick accused QuackGuru of WP:OWN when it was a content dispute. SPACKlick stated "QG regularly "fixes" problems under discussion before a solution has become apparant or gained consensus 1" QuackGuru moved the page because it was not a list. Since when is fixing problems a problem? SPACKlick stated "QG also attempts to intimidate people away from content disputes". But SPACKlick did delete relevant information. See here for an explanation of the deleted material. See here for the AN/I discussion.

S Marshall
S Marshall (SM) claims QuackGuru stated all secondary sources are reliable. QuackGuru stated it is widely on Wikipedia as a reliable source. SM agreed the source is reliable, but stated it is an "offending sentence". SM replaced the sourced sentence with redundancy. SM provided an old diff of QuackGuru's edit regarding a few is a synonym for many. The wording "a few" was redundant because the previous sentence mentioned "many individual vapers". In response to SM: QuackGuru disagreed on the talk page with the exact wording from SM's edit. While another editor restored the wording, QuackGuru helped resolve the dispute by making a similar edit. SM stated QuackGuru's response was a complete non sequitur, but the wording was not exactly the same. SM stated without supporting evidence that "If a discussion appears to be trending towards a change, QG will leap in and make a pre-emptive edit well before there's consensus. SM stated without supporting evidence "We need to help him channel his enthusiasm to where it's needed, and empower him to revert bad faith additions to the encyclopaedia, while limiting his ability to obstruct genuine improvements." SM closed a RfC in December 2014 stating that "The consensus is that neither "vapour" nor "aerosol" are misleading." A RfC was closed on another page in July 2015 with aerosol being the most scientifically accurate descriptor. User:SMcCandlish said that "Use "aerosol", as correct terminology, vs. "vapor", which is a marketing falsehood, thus it fails WP:NPOV". SM stated "Yes, please maintain full protection of this article. Personally I think it needs substantial changes including a complete rewrite from scratch of the lede, and I think the current version is a problem but it's much less of a problem than open season would be." SM stated "It would be helpful QuackGuru if you could please be less obstructive." The comments by SM suggests he was unsupportive of QuackGuru's new material. SM added three maintenance tags with a hidden content, naming QuackGuru. That was disruptive and not appropriate. TracyMcClark restored the tags with the hidden content. The tags were restored without consensus. SM stated "QG is in the allowed-to-edit-the-article club". SM stated "Wikipedia's a waiting game, QG." After being warned SM disagreed he was being uncivil. SM wants the lead to be "much shorter". This includes deleting the sentence "The long-term effects of e-cigarette use are unknown." It is not repetitive and it summarises the body. Oversimplifying the wording replaced accurate information with text that was too vague. SM's proposal to change the lead was opposed by all editors. See Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 23. Replacing the first paragraph with two is too long per WP:LEADLENGTH. Leads are usually no more than 4 paragraphs. SM deleted relevant text from the lead that failed to gain consensus. See Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 23. SM deleted a sentence from "Construction" against talk page consensus and unformatted some of the references. See Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 24 for consensus to include the sentence in "Construction". SM also restored a link to an unreliable promotional pro-cig website named puritane.co.uk. SM's proposal to move the stats to be part of the reference section was not a good proposal. Admin User:Doc James stated "The data is important. Not something that should be hidden within the refs." See Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 25. Later he moved the stats from the lead to the body, but the stats are a summary of the body. Both SM and SPACKlick deleted a WP:MEDRS compliant review from "Addiction" in July 2015. See Talk:Electronic cigarette/Archive 25. The known unknowns are relevant information, especially when it is about youth. After QuackGuru improved the prose for two sentences SM stated that "It's on the list of things to fix at a later date when there are fewer obstructive editors around." SPACKlick stated the known unknowns are "emotional scaremongering". Back in November 2014 AlbinoFerret removed the known unknowns from the same section. Then AlbinoFerret withdrawn the RfC to remove the known unknowns. SM stated "Summarising means using fewer words, and "ever" is one of the words that can be reduced." User:CFCF and QuackGuru support using the word "ever". Jonny Quick stated "Use of the word "ever" may have technical nuance from the research/statistic perspective. Dropping it may change that nuance and including it does not detract from readability." SM stated on 13 April 2015 "... but I'll support SPACKlick to this extent: QG is infuriating and impossible to deal with, and the article is unimprovable while he very actively guards it against any and all substantive edits by the evil cranks, paid editors and pro-e-cig-industry stooges such as, apparently, myself. We're basically marking time until QG crosses the line egregiously enough for a topic ban." On 13 April 2015 this was the article. While "Construction" was moved to a subpage, the e-cigarette article has gradually improved since April.

KimDabelsteinPetersen
KimDabelsteinPetersen was one of the editors who opposed a topic ban for AlbinoFerret in November 2014. See Administrators%27 noticeboard/IncidentArchive864. Later in March 2015 KimDabelsteinPetersen "do not see policy violations to back up a ban" for AlbinoFerret. See Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive880. While AlbinoFerret was deleting a number of reliable sources, KimDabelsteinPetersen deleted a number of sources.   AlbinoFerret is currently on a voluntary break without admitting any wrongdoing. User:Yobol stated "Again, you all are making up your own rules and "consensus" again. The only point I have ever made is that material about health needs to be sourced to MEDRS compliant sources. Statements by major medical organizations meet MEDRS." KimDabelsteinPetersen stated "No, i'm most certainly not making up rules. And you really should get consensus before reverting in material. reliability or verifiability does not infer inclusion. Statements by major medical organizations are WP:TERTIARY, not secondary - or review material." See User talk:KimDabelsteinPetersen/Archive 2015 for a discussion with KimDabelsteinPetersen. The RfC confirmed the sources are reliable. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes/Archive 3. SM proposed adding a new tag. See here for a warning for adding a bat signal to the top of the e-cigarette article. See Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 85 for the COI discussion in respect to KimDabelsteinPetersen.

Levelledout
Levelledout deleted reviews and secondary sources from the article. Levelledout was been given a final warning for deleting the content again. Bishonen stated QuackGuru followed WP:CAUTIOUS for the significant change. QuackGuru did link to the sandbox at least twice. Levelledout thought at the time that "Sourcing is irrelevant." The diffs Levelledout presented as examples of incivility and personal attacks were ridiculous and the evidence lacked vigour. Levelledout stated information about pregnant women of reproductive age provides nothing informative. There is a concern with those who wish to remove high-quality sourced content or to de-emphasize them. QuackGuru ( talk ) 23:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by CFCF
This topic has been subject of a great number of WP:SPAs as well as the odd WP:Undisclosed paid editor. The last dispute I got involved in was upon seeing a number of edits which removed relevant information. I tried to point to the concept of "known unknowns" and how it is treated in medicine. I also explained that the exact same discussion on including such unknowns had occurred just a month or so previously (of which some of very same editors had taken part in). My reluctance to take part in another circuitous discussion resulted in having an ANI-report filed against me. I do not know how to keep SPAs or paid editors away from this topic, so I welcome any ArbCom decision. -- CFCF  🍌 (email) 17:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I am a medical student and I care about presenting good evidence when it comes to health effects. I've been open that ecigs may promote health among smokers, but that we currently do not know enough to state this. I believe the articles should focus on evidence and when possible avoid "marketese". My contributions on the articles have come in waves interspersed with editing of other medical and non-medical topics. I have done image work, forked out lists, and immersed myself into evidence surrounding the topic.

I see two issues:
 * 1. Volume of discussion – exceeds what ordinary editors can handle. There is no reasonable way to keep up with the army of WP:SPAs. This creates an adversarial environment.
 * 2. Too many SPAs – make it impossible to distinguish good faith editors from those who question every negative statement, while blanket-allowing anything positive.

Beyond the sheer number of SPAs there are also paid advocates and sockpuppets. I have tried to only list uncontroversial cases here – for evidence please see contribution pages as well as talk pages & block notices.

Of interest may be a blog post by User:FergusM1970 on 15/07/15 – instructing on advocacy and on how making minor edits on other pages avoids being perceived as an SPA: blog, (archive). The blog also makes a number of insulting comments about User:Doc James and User:QuackGuru.


 * Sockpuppets banned this year  acting on this article set 

– Sockpuppeteer, banned for undisclosed paid editing A clear case can be made for WP:BANREVERT violation – and similarity of IP-addresses helps identify the following user(s) acting under open proxies: 89.15.23_.__ range – owned by Telefonica/O2 Germany 89.204.13_.__ range – owned by Telefonica/O2 Germany (For other unrelated edits indicative of open proxies see . Some overlap, not enough to constitute evidence.)
 * SPAs
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * SPAs
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * WP:BANREVERT violations
 * Related IPs on Sockpuppet_investigations/FergusM1970
 * – Blocked
 * – Blocked
 * IPs on Articles for deletion/Jerome Katz (2nd nomination)/Jerome Katz – Paid editing creation of FergusM1970 (admitted here)
 * (edit on Ecigs and Jerome Katz)
 * 
 * see above
 * Ranges

As resolution I suggest all involved accounts (including recent accounts) be checkusered, and open proxies be closed per: 1, 2, 3
 * Solutions

Some specific sanctions that can be taken:

All this would allow for slower discussion (editors would be forced to drop it for ~24 hours), allowing a more stable article-set to be formed.
 * Introduction of a 1RR rule to the article set and a no-rerevert rule
 * Enforcing semi-protection on all articles.
 * Sanctions on RfCs would help reduce volume of discussion

If checkuser of involved editors does not occur I am also preparing evidence for a new WP:SPI to replace what was effectively a draft SPI of FergusM1970. There is more evidence than I can fit here and I would also request help from those previously involved:, ,. The investigation includes more paid editing, unrelated to ecigs.
 * Responses and support
 * Response to S Marshall
 * I've archived a number of sections as well as upping to frequency of bot archival – without which the pages would be unmanageable. Users reported being unable to access pages due to size (at one point >530,000kBs). Owing to the speed at which new topics could swell there was no point in keeping old sections on the main page and I considered a 60,000kB reintroduction of a stale discussion as disruptive and reverted once.
 * As for hatting there was a recent and similar discussion at on known unknowns. User:InfiniteBratwurst, who started that discussion was later banned for being a sockpuppet of User:FergusM1970. I considered the way the topic was treated as unscientific and unconstructive:  – prompting me to boldly close it. At the very height this was a lapse of judgment.
 * Response to SPACKlick:
 * I will admit to an error on my part – I managed to misinterpret some editors, including one very wordy comment from User:SMcCandlish. I understood consensus to be strongly in favor of inclusion and defended that slightly too hard. When SMcCandlish clarified his position: – I realized my mistake and pursued it no further.
 * Note that in the diffs linked as evidence against me there is both the first introduction of the hatnote as well as reverts of users acting under presumed or full violation of WP:BANREVERT:
 * Removal  Added back  – 1 edit   Removal   Added back:
 * Response to Georgewilliamherbert:
 * Identifying polarizing editors has so far failed as new accounts pop up all the time, and what might seem as polarized behavior may simply be frustration with having to repeat the same points about levels of evidence over and over. Getting rid of any medical editors will only skew the ratio as advocates register new accounts. Solution must be directed at the nature of editing and consensus-building – not individuals, regardless how deserving.
 * Support for QuackGuru:
 * Quackguru is the only editor with the time, energy and understanding of medical references to successfully defend the article against advocacy. Topic banning him would be very counterproductive and his being singled out is only for having persevered for so long.

Preliminary statement by SPACKlick
I'm aware of the case. I do believe some intervention is needed in this area there has been a long history of tendentious, battleground, ownership, socking, IDHT and it's not gotten better since the discretionary sanctions began. SPACKlick (talk) 11:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

added: Just to add in response to SMcCandlish's post. In terms of the two problems I've seen 2, the anger at the arguments or bullheadedness of others (perceived or real), drive several editors, guilty of the same or not, into problems and away from the page. I've certainly made bad editing choices as a result of it.

In terms of his 4 types. I've seen several people accused of A who are actually simply trying to prevent medical over-reach. Where he talks about articles even ones that are clearly about biomedical topics like the vapor/aerosol emitted by electronic nicotine-delivery devices, and its alleged health effects. I think it's worth noting that these two things are in seperate articles, the safety is clearly a medical topic, the composition of the vapour is clearly a topic in chemistry so while good sourcing applies that sourcing will likely come from different journals.

There's also another major concern, which is readability of the article. It's been raised by several editors that the article needs some quite major work just to improve the quality with which it delivers information and that's been my primary concern. Currently it's quite scattershot with one sentence per source and little to no information flow from sentence to sentence so the average reader coming to look at e-cigarettes to see, for instance, whether or not to use them, will usually give up reading the article very quickly and will likely be none-the wiser as to what the known health effects are, what the likely health effects are and what the known and likely health benefits over smoking are. Some editors, particularly those from project medicine, seem to be aiming this article at medical readers rather than the average audience.

Response to Jytdog: That wasn't hobby advocacy and to say it is clearly so baffles me. There is one bad paper that I had, for a period, had to point a couple of people towards why I considered it junk science and in fact an advocacy piece for Anti-Tobacco. So I put the links together in one place. My stance on these articles as hobby vs medical is that most readers will be hobbyists so we need to present medical information in a way that is easy to understand rather than dense, unflowing, disjointed prose with excess specifics.

Also the views of the medical establishment (a precautionary approach that calls for significant regulation due to the unknown risks of long-term e-cig use and the very clear risk of getting a whole new generation hooked on nicotine, It is unclear the level of dispute in the medical establishment over how cautious to be. This could do with better and clearer elaboration on the page. SPACKlick (talk) 14:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Intro
I am an e-cig user and have been for nearly 2 years, I came to the article when looking for information about the product to get a sense of whether or not I should try to quit cigarettes with e-cigs, the page was woefully underdeveloped. Since then the page has been developed and branched into a handful of pages most of which are still very bad at delivering information to the average reader of the page.

CFCF ignoring consensus
CFCF ignores consensus and refuses to engage in building consensus instead claiming a phantom consensus exits. For instance recently regarding a DABHAT from E-Cig Vapour to Cigarette smoke, CFCF kept reverting (12345678 several editors removal of the tag, without engaging on the talk page until after the 7th revert (there was one post prior that merely read No, you're wrong. WP:HATNOTE, and then when he did engage in the talk page claimed this thread showed consensus.

Quack Guru issues
Quack guru calls paraphrasing original research 12 Quack seems to work to very fast deadlines [ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronic_cigarette&type=revision&diff=660806641&oldid=660727671 tagging] then deleting within 15 minutes. QG becomes very attached to things being in their own words in a WP:OWN esque way 12 QG regularly "fixes" problems under discussion before a solution has become apparant or gained consensus 1 QG also attempts to intimidate people away from content disputes 1 I did dig up further evidence of issues like poor comprehension1 but I think S Marshall sums it up better than I can.

response to 92.31.93.163
I have indeed admitted my flaws and will continue to do so. Issues at these articles have on a couple of occasions frustrated me and I've made poor editing decisions in response to those frustrations, such as engaging in a brief edit war over an image.

The claim that I "maintained that a picture of a man standing on a minbar in a mosque was a man sitting on a camel on a mountain surrounded by thousands is patently false and I ask the editor to cite or strike. The issue at Islamic Calendar resolved around my participation in an RFC over the inclusion of an image of Mohammed. I commented that I found the keep argument more compelling, the RFC was closed in favour of that view and later I found an IP editor (now known as a sock puppet of a banned user) edit warring to remove the image so I patrolled the page to reduce the disruption and tried to engage in discussion with the IP on the talk page until it became clear they had no interest in working to build a better page. I don't see any misconduct issues there or relevance but I'm happy to discuss further if needed

Response to Doc James
I think it is a straw man to suggest people's issue with the writing relates to passages such as "The benefits and health risks of electronic cigarettes are uncertain." as opposed to passages like "Many say e-cigarettes help them cut down or quit smoking. Adults often use e-cigarettes to replace tobacco, but not always to quit. Most e-cigarette users are middle-aged men who also smoke traditional cigarettes, either to help them quit or for recreational use. Among young adults e-cigarette use is not regularly associated with trying to quit smoking. Women who smoke who are poorer and did not finish high school, are more likely to have tried vaping at least once. E-cigarette use is also rising among women, including women of childbearing age, but the rate of use during pregnancy is unknown." Which are disjointed and repetitive. SPACKlick (talk) 12:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to George William Herbert
I agree with GWH that removing polarising/polarised editors in all camps from mainspace editing would resolve a lot of the problems. Sadly that is the lions share of the contributors but forcing consensus building would massively improve the editing of the article. SPACKlick (talk) 01:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Georgewilliamherbert
I was attempting to intervene as an uninvolved administrator but the scope and breadth of the disputes, the historical depth etc. has proved more complicated than I could absorb in my available time. This is a deep complicated one. I recommend the committee use an extended schedule on processing this one, as it will take far more digging and evidence production to adequately address it than average current cases. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

General statement

 * The comment by Stanton McClandish regarding the editor camps aligns with my observations made while I was attempting to uninvolvedly-administratively-involve myself earlier, though Johnbod's observations of the splits in the medical community are also informative. The editors who are trying to disagree about the camps issue seem ... too close to the issue, or lack depth studying Wikipedia disputes.  We've seen this type of thing before, but it's complicated-er by the wider spectrum of individual camps people tend to align with.
 * I believe the fundamental principles needed to approach this exist in existing pillars, policy, guidelines, essays, decisions and admin standards etc. The problem is the very rapid rate of discussions, the difficulty tracking which camp is aligning with what in terms of the specifics on a given issue, etc.  The people who think things are ok without Arbcom intervention seem to as a rule type faster and win that way, in the long term, and that's not policy-compliant or the best thing for the encyclopedia or NPOV or COI etc.
 * I fear undisclosed COI and paid schills for industry but I don't know that we can easily ID anyone doing so. We can probably address the problems without it.
 * In my opinion, it may be good enough of a solution to identify who's polarized on either side, and who's policy-aware-NPOV-aware-encyclopedia-quality-focused, and just exclude the polarized from editing the articles directly, forcing them to work through talk page consensus and so forth. If we insist on starting with sources and talk page discussions around source reliability per policy, and then what we can learn from the source once it's established as OK to use, that can work.
 * Pointing at individual editors for Arbcom personal attention and correction would require more specifics than I have been able to tease out of this to date. Most of the complaints here seem to lack specificity on the micro and are too simplistic on the macro.  Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:14, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Levelledout
Personally speaking I have taken a hiatus from the topic area due to the fact that it is an impossible environment for any editor that prefers consensus over edit-warring/ownership. So yes I certainly think an ArbCom case is required, particularly as all other routes have been exhausted, repeatedly. I would hope that it would be possible to perhaps re-examine my previous request as part of this one.Levelledout (talk) 21:44, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Intro
I first started editing the article when I read it and noticed that although it contained many reliable sources it didn't seem to comply with WP:NPOV very well. Since that time my contributions have been mostly confined to the talk pages since editing and improving the actual article is often almost impossible. The reason that I originally read the article is that I use an e-cigarette, although I'm not particularly interested in vaping culture.

QuackGuru's conduct issues are the worst in the topic by miles. QG is also the article's most active editor. Whilst QG does make some valid contributions, like the vast majority of editors do, their wide range of conduct issues outweigh these contributions since they make editing the article and having sensible discussions on talk pages impossible for other editors. I think that if QG is dealt with effectively, then sorting out the rest of the problems will become far easier, so it is QG that I intend to concentrate on. I have no specific complaints against other individual editors although for a long time now there has been a supreme amount of edit-warring, battleground behaviour on talk-pages and mistrust between the different camps. Things were better when the page was fully protected and I would recommend forcing editors to get consensus before making material changes to any content.

QuackGuru
Aside from the odd article relating to Wikipedia itself, QuackGuru only edits articles that they consider relate to quackerry. QuackGuru has previously tried to ignore WP:V where the source in question does not happen to concur with their quack-fighting agenda.diff1talkdiff1 They consider a very weak source such as a tabloid newspaper to be reliable for usage data when it suits them diff. Yet they insist on the highest quality sources for usage data when it doesn't.diff Multiple editors have remarked on QuackGuru's ownership of the article, e.g.talkdiff1 talkdiff2 talkdiff3 talkdiff4.

WP:HONESTY is another big problem with QG. For instance in the following conversation they witheld a quote from a source that only they had access to even after they were requested to provide it.diff

Other issues identified in a previous Arbcom Case request: "'They (e-cigarette users) also undertake in uncivil online attacks on any person who implies that e-cigarettes are not an innovation, with at least one person associated to an organization that receives donations from the tobacco industry.'"
 * Abuse of the page (un)protection process and thus WP:GAMING. Also forcing through large-scale changes without consensus and edit-warring, thus violating WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CAUTIOUS. Sequence of events as follows:
 * Single handedly getting page protection removed, no notification of discussion on article talk page.
 * Immediately dumping massive (9k) amounts of error-ridden material into article, no notification/discussion on article talk page.
 * After article was consequently reprotected, immediately running straight back to requests for page protection without notifying article talk page and getting expiry date reduced.
 * Intensely editing article in sandbox for next ten days until protection expired again, no notification or discussion to article talk page.
 * Dumping vast (17k) error-ridden sandbox edits into article as soon as protection expired again, no prior discussion, in direct violation of instructions given by admin.
 * Edit-warring the changes back into the article after they were reverted.
 * Removing a POV tag 5 times within a few days thus edit-warring - diff1 diff2 diff3 diff4 diff5. On at least two occasions (diff2/talkpagediff and diff3/talkpagediff) doing so purely due to a personal fued, thus disrupting Wikipedia to prove a WP:POINT.
 * Breaching WP:NPOV, likely in order to try and prove a WP:POINT in a personal feud with the insertion of the following into the article, sourced from an editorial:
 * WP:COMPETENCE issues regarding language and grammar, error-ridden edits (see above) and failing to understand the concepts of WP:OR and paraphrasing - diff1 diff2 diff3 diff4 diff5
 * WP:FILIBUSTERING, often to the extreme, stating one objection, then when that is shown to be redundant, coming up with a different one, then when all else fails simply telling all other editors that their objections are invalid and inadmissible - diff1 diff2 diff3 also diff1 diff2 diff3
 * Personal attacks and incivility diff1 diff2.

I completely disagree with S Marshall that a double-standard should exist for QuackGuru, firstly because WP:PAGs apply to all editors equally and make no mention of double-standards. Secondly because QG's quack-fighting agenda is often their first priority before any WP:PAG. And thirdly because QuackGuru is not helping the situation, they are causing the problems and creating a vicous cycle as evidenced above.Levelledout (talk) 10:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to Yobol
To determine if a user is an SPA its necessary to look at their whole edit history. I'm sure that Arbs will do this anyway, but to make things easier:
 * TracyMcClark is quite clearly not an SPA.
 * 613 of SPACKlick's 3,503 (17%) edits are on e-cig articles and talk pages, again clearly not an SPA.
 * 502 out 967 (52%) of my own edits have been to e-cig articles and talk pages (442 on the main talk page). Quite a high proportion, but I don't consider that an SPA. When there are significant disagreements, as there have been in this topic, it takes a lot of discussion to try and sort them out.
 * Mihaister 314 e-cig edits out of 573 (55%), not including 35 edits to other tobacco-related topics.
 * TheNorlo 463 e-cig edits out of 635 (73%), not including 31 edits to related topics.

One editor not mentioned by Yobol is Cloudjpk, 353 e-cig edits out of 482 (73%). Cloudjpk, unlike the other editors above is in the MED camp. I am not saying that they have necessarily done anything wrong since being an SPA in itself is not actionable, just pointing this out.

Also User:FergusM1970 was I think banned for paid editing to Derwick Associates, not e-cigs (although they did edit e-cig articles).Levelledout (talk) 14:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Gigs
I have only participated sparsely on talk pages for these affected articles that I can recall. I will say that QuackGuru initially struck me as a highly motivated editor in this topic area, but the more I lurked, the more it became clear that they were using subtle and not-so-subtle tactics to subvert the content, steamrolling many other editors in the process. I steered clear from the entire topic area because of this toxicity. I suspect I'm not the only one. Gigs (talk) 05:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by SMcCandlish
I responded to a WP:RFC, and did several hours of fresh-eyes source research (specifically on use of the term "aerosol" in relation to the topic), at Talk:Electronic cigarette aerosol, and probably made a few tweaks at that and related articles, but have no particular involvement beyond that in the entire topic area, and am totally neutral on the "issue of e-cigs". I don't smoke, and IRL I know people who love and hate e-cigs. I have no particular connection to any editor here (other than one left me a barnstar a while back, but I ended up being critical of him/her not long after, over disputes in this topic area). I also commented at the WP:ANI thread leading up to this case, saying much of what I'm saying here. From one subthread to the next, even in just an RFC discussion on an article title, I find myself nodding in agreement with several of the editors named here, and then moments later flabbergasted by their bullheadedness on a related side issue on the same page. Reason is not prevailing.

The problem as I see it is two-fold, but multilayered: The combination of the two factors has made the entire topic area, across all the related articles, essentially intolerable. I "ran away screaming" after being initially interested in doing a bunch more sourcing work. The layers I see are in point #1 above. There are at least four "camps" of editors involved, to my eyes (based on editing patterns, not just explicit statements):  "Vaping" lifestylers who are pushing very hard to prevent WP:MEDRS from applying in any way to any articles on this subject area, even ones that are clearly about biomedical topics like the vapor/aerosol emitted by electronic nicotine-delivery devices, and its alleged health effects. Their view seems to be that this must be treated solely as a commercial-product, cultural/subculture, and legal/regulatory topic. We've seen this kind of perhaps innocent PoV pushing before on various topics that my granddad would have called "vice" subjects – marijuana and other recreational drugs, porn, prostitution, etc. The motivation behind the mindset comes from works like Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society by Peter McWilliams, and decades of lifestyle magazines. It's a valid viewpoint to have, but not to force in every possible way. Undisclosed representatives of e-cigarette manufacturers. These are often difficult or impossible to distinguish from the above group, because the effective result on the content is the same – suppression of critical scientific literature on the topic – as are many of the stated arguments in this direction. E-cig prohibitionists, who are doing something like the opposite, seeking to fill all the relevant articles with negative (and only negative) material from the scientific and medical literature, and pushing a PoV that a more balanced viewpoint is WP:FRINGE, when even a few minutes on JSTOR or Google Scholar or PubMed shows that it is not (just as it also shows that concerns about personal and public health are not fringey either, but well represented in peer-reviewed literature). Regular ol' editors without any stake in these "sides", interested in a balanced set of articles that, neutrally and without novel WP:AEIS (analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis), reflect what the sources are telling us, e.g. about the alleged benefits of e-cigs in "harm reduction" and tobacco cessation programs, vs. the alleged risks of what's in "e-cig juice" and the appeal of e-cigs to young people who might never take up smoking otherwise. I have not read beyond a few abstracts on these topics, and have no axe to grind, but as a reader I'm curious what a proper encyclopedic article would say about these things, especially if it were based correctly and primarily on high-quality secondary sources like current books from academic publishers and literature reviews in journals. As an editor, there's no way I'd wade into this topic area again at present, due to the tides of WP:Tendentious editing. 
 * 1) There are external PoVs (different ones) pushing very, very hard on this topic. I see a lot of accusations of sock/meat puppetry, and SPA editing.
 * 2) Some of the regular editors are being blinded by their own anger and just adding to the chaos.

I think ArbCom should take the case, to "lay down the law" about core content policies, and to also address the WP:BATTLEGROUND nature of the dispute. A third aspect, of course, is the external, probably paid, COI interests manipulating these articles. It might not even just be from e-cig manufacturers – it's not like advocacy groups don't also try to manipulate WP content; they're doing so more and more every day. I have no idea how to prove such concerns are valid, but I'm not the only one who has them about this topic, and others have been paying much closer attention to who is making what kinds of edits. For me the main issue is that the sheer intensity of the battling suggests there's more going on here than just some personality conflicts, and it's fierce enough that editors who might be able to "patrol" these articles for balance are going to need blood-pressure prescriptions to go along with their hazmat suits at this rate. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:32, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to Preliminary statement by SPACKlick
SPACKlick is making a argument about whether Electronic cigarette aerosol should be considered a strictly chemistry topic with no biomed material and thus be somehow immune to WP:MEDRS concerns (an invalid argument on its face, since chemistry facts about a device used by humans to produce a biochemical effect are not pure chemistry but applied, and which is biomedical by definition). But this ArbCom case is about behavior not content. The bare fact of the matter is that the article does contain biomed content. It's entirely reasonable to suppose that a future consensus may merge that article with other material focusing even more on health effects, or split them further so that it contains no health information of any kind. But the article is and for the foreseeable future will remain a mixture of medical and non-medical content (very little of it strictly non-medical) I've proposed a wording tweak at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) that may help forestall future disputes of this nature; the guideline cannot (and was not intended to) literally prevent the use of reliable, peer-reviewed sources just because they did not come from something strictly defined as a "medical journal", and the wording can thus be clarified to indicate this better. Because MEDRS is a guideline and we have policies like WP:V and WP:NOR that govern the use of primary and secondary sources on Wikipedia, battlegrounding to "disprove" the scope of the MEDRS guideline could never be an appropriate course of action to begin with, and it is legitimate for ArbCom to examine such a matter. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:42, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to Evidence presented by SPACKlick
Several of SPACKlick's complaints about QuackGuru are not valid: I don't necessarily disagree with the other complaints, but a single diff relating to each is not evidence of problematic patterns (I have not examined these evidence points as aggregated with those of others (e.g. Johnbod); that's ArbCom's job. :-) QG's firm reliance on WP:CORE doesn't auto-forgive every possible transgression, but what are the transgression, really? Finally, every single editor on WP has a comprehension gaffe from time to time; this is not a WP behavioral issue except in the cases of continual problems parsing English correctly or behaving rationally (if any editor involved in this dispute has such a problem, it isn't QG). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:50, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Paraphrasal often  original research, and incorrect use of it is probably the #1 way in which OR is performed, even if proper use of it is something we have to do to avoid plagiarism. QG did not say that  paraphrasal is OR.  With regard to the second diff there, he simply went with what the source actually said (I agree that the two terms are not synonyms, BTW; "young people" means "under middle-aged").
 * 2) Tagging material that fails verification is a courtesy only, and is often done so that if the deletion is reverted, the material remains tagged as disputed (unless someone WP:POINTily reverts to the version before the tagging, too). WP:V policy permits its immediate deletion if it's potentially controversial and isn't likely to be sourceable (vs. already sourced). The WP:RS guideline encourages outright deletion if in doubt, and the WP:MEDRS outline especially encourages this with regard to biomed topics.
 * 3) Neither "evidence" diff provided for the WP:OWN claim supports it. The first is a simple argument for conciseness, and the second is a conciliatory post thanking for deletion of an inappropriate image, and requesting a different kind of image.  In a vague way, I too feel there's a bit of an possessiveness attitude issue with QG, but this is true of hundreds (at least) of editors about their favorite topics, and doesn't rise to OWNership problem levels or require ArbCom intervention in most cases.

Response to Preliminary statement by Bluerasberry
The very fact that this debate has been intractable for years and is getting more heated and disruptive is ArbCom needs to act upon it. If health organizations are relying on observation of fights over this article to determine what issues they need to address, that's highly dubious research, and it's not WP's job to provide it for them forever at the expense of our own goals; arguing to allow this disruption to continue on such a basis is WP:ITSUSEFUL. I strongly agree that "people affiliated with lobbyists appear in this space", and that this is something of a test case for how we deal with external "propaganda creep" (nice soundbyte! Good essay title ....) See top of my user page – I think. But effectively dealing with COI/SPA and meatpuppetry, sustained "civil POV" editing to warp neutrality, and possibly intentional disruption to prevent consensus forming in a direction that doesn't suit certain interests, are core parts of how we'll approach that, and ArbCom's main job is doing precisely that. Jytdog: You, BR, QG, me, and others are all concerned about the WP:NOT issues, but sustained editorial interest isn't activism; it's what we actually want for GA/FA development. Advocacy is an externally driven, organized pressure on WP, not some editor being "too" interested. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:54, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to CFCF
CFCF, at User talk:SMcCandlish, has clarified their intent and purpose with regard to the disambiguation RfC that I considered to be so disruptive (see SPACKlick's long string of diffs in this regard). While I think that these clarifications address faith/intent, they do not really get at the disruptive effect, so I think ArbCom has a legitimate interest in examining the matter. On the talk page of this evidence page I previously went into some detail on why doing so might be a good idea for WP, but it's not, really (and is about the tactic, not this specific editor), so I don't see any utility in dumping a copy of it into this page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:42, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to Evidence presented by Doc James
I agree that the overtagging by S Marshall was WP:POINTy, but it's hardly a "hangin' offense", and SM probably got the message. I realize other complaints about SM were raised, but none of them stuck out in my mind, so I have no comment on them. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:07, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by RexxS
I commend to you the analysis by of the four groups who are involved in this area. It is accurate. The problem you are going to be faced with is working out which of the involved parties fall into which group.

For me, the important policy is WP:MEDRS: "Wikipedia's articles, while not intended to provide medical advice, are nonetheless an important and widely used source of health information. Therefore, it is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." and it is this guidance that provides the bulwark against our articles being flooded with poor quality sources. The lifestylers and ecig shills will be looking to introduce any published material that happens to reinforce their POV and they will try anything to ensure that our strongest defence is excluded from the articles they are pushing. As you examine the evidence, you'll find numerous examples of: (i) editors complaining about "medical overreach" (see above), when the fact under consideration is clearly a health-related claim; (ii) unnecessary forking of articles to separate the health information, so that they can claim MEDRS doesn't apply to the main article; (iii) ad hominem attacks on the editors who try to oppose these sort of measures. I assure you that you can use these tests to help determine who's defending the Wiki and who's trying to push their POV, but it's going to be hard work going through all the evidence. I hope you're up to the task and I wish you luck. --RexxS (talk) 14:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that TracyMcClark manages to avoid mentioning all the attempts at forking that didn't result in articles. Only the notable ones survived. Also you'll have seen the immediate resort to ad hominem as I predicted: "dishonest" and "claims with little to no merit". Smearing the other editor saves the effort of actually arguing the issue. --RexxS (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So you want me to supply diffs of articles that were never created or didn't survive. Fair enough, I'll trawl through the talk pages when I have time and get back to you. --RexxS (talk) 14:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Bluerasberry
I request that ArbCom allow the kind of editing which has been happening at electronic cigarette to happen indefinitely as it has been going on since 2013 at least.

Electronic cigarette is one of the most popular articles on Wikipedia. It is one of the most controversial topics in the field of health, and the field of health has a lot of participants and a lot of funding.

In this Wikipedia article, there is continual back-and-forth editing and endless debating, but the participants in this all get their views heard and reach a consensus. Sometimes there are personal attacks which are mild enough, and in my opinion, may increase some peoples stress but it is not rising to the level of making an unpleasant forum. Conversation stays on topic even though there are differences in opinion which are not easy to reconcile. I expect that if the discussion in the talk archives of e-cigarette were printed on paper then it would run to not less than 1000 paper printed pages. There are some individuals here now who have read all of this, so I think that is supporting evidence of the dedication here.

I work for a health organization which is authoring consumer health information on electronic cigarettes and the discussion in this Wikipedia has surfaced the points which health communication professionals must address to provide clarity to people who are seeking information. It is in my interest that these arguments proceed because Wikipedians are identifying the ambiguity in the extant reliable sources, and voicing demand for information that no one in the health communication industry ever could have imagined that people would want. The source of the arguments in this space is weakness in the reliable sources, and not ill will or bad behavior of any of the participants in this talk. Everyone here plays by the rules and the article improves over time. I regret that changes here are so time consuming, but Wikipedia has no better process than WP:BRD for finding progress.

I am a participant in WikiProject Medicine. Some others in this discussion are also with that group as well. It is my opinion that most people in WikiProject Medicine are of like mind as to how this article should appear, and that WikiProject Medicine likes now and has always liked the trend of the e-cigarette article's development. I have my own bias, and although I cannot speak on behalf of WikiProject Medicine or any other community of Wikipedians, in my mind, I am a follower of WikiProject Medicine consensus. I think that continued development of this article in the way it has been going will only make it comply more fully with WikiProject Medicine consensus and that this is a good thing and how Wikipedia is supposed to work.

I do not want anyone in this discussion topic blocked. Also - people affiliated with lobbyists appear in this space. There is a lot of money, USD tens of millions at least, which are looking at public communication in the space of opinion on e-cigarettes. Right now the budget for influencing this article is nonexistent, and I only care because I am a Wikipedian first and just happen to work in health communication, but already we have seen hints that large corporate interests are willing to invest large sums of money in communicating that the public should consumer tobacco and comparable products like e-cigarettes. Because I am so sure that there will be a sustained communications push from e-cigarette sales to influence public perception in this space, I want sustained debate in this Wikipedia article to establish a record of precedent of how things should be to prepare for propaganda creep from all stakeholders in this space.

This is a Wikipedia article which will be a major influence in international health policy and market sectors in multiple countries. Whatever else ArbCom does here - let the people in this article proceed as they have been going. The controversy here is less related to the Wikipedians participating here, and more related to the controversy in the articles they edit.

I want no one topic banned here.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  15:00, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by TracyMcClark
In response to RexxS here, this kind of dishonest behaviour/presentation coming from med-project members is exacly what made me quit, like the last straw(s) since it's in my nature not to check my brain at any door.

Quote "unnecessary forking of articles to separate the health information, so that they can claim MEDRS doesn't apply to the main article;"

Fact is, all forks were created by med-members:


 * Safety of electronic cigarettes, forked out by Doc James.
 * Electronic cigarette aerosol, fork created by QuackGuru.
 * Positions of medical organizations regarding electronic cigarettes, forked out by Doc James.
 * Construction of electronic cigarettes, forked out by Doc James.
 * Legal status of electronic cigarettes, forked out by CFCF.
 * List of vaping bans in the United States, forked out from fork by QuackGuru.
 * Cloud-chasing (electronic cigarette), fork created by QuackGuru.
 * Vape shop, fork created by QuackGuru.

In short: A creates B and C gets accused of creating B in bad faith.

No comment on their other claims with little to no merit.--TMCk (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Responding to RexxS again. So far you're only confirming my point made.--TMCk (talk) 00:21, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Me: Refuted your claim with evidence (we call them diffs).
 * You: Repeating claim w/o presenting evidence that could proof me wrong.

Being specific:

Quote:"...TracyMcClark manages to avoid mentioning all the attempts at forking that didn't result in articles. Only the notable ones survived."

May I ask you to point to those alleged articles/forks that didn't survive?--TMCk (talk) 00:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by P Walford
I have read many, many pages of history in this topic area, and S Marshall’s statement above is the most accurate assessment I’ve seen, especially when he said, “…in fact what's going on here, as I see it, is about poor judgment rather than bad faith.” I believe all involved editors are making sincere attempts to improve the articles, and many are failing miserably.

I appreciate that SMcCandlish is trying to make sense of the issues by categorising editors into a number of camps. If discussion is framed in this way going forward, however, it is unlikely to result in any useful outcomes. There’s far too much of an us and them approach already.

Bluerasberry makes an excellent point about the weakness of reliable sources. Anyone looking for advocates, shills, socks, undisclosed COIs, etc. could find many of them in a list of their authors. Almost every word in each of them is challenged by other reliable sources, and it appears that editors are forgetting to describe disputes, but not engage in them. Bluerasberry’s suggestion to allow things to continue as they have been going, however, probably won't result in substantial improvements until the community can adequately address the frequent violations of WP:PAG. P Walford (talk) 00:56, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Jytdog
I want to start by saying that 's remarks were shocking to me - wonderfully so. An unusual take on things. In some ways I love his recommendation and wish Arbcom would consider it. However, I don't expect you all to do a unanimous backflip (although shocking things happen).

If this goes forward, I would urge that the focus be on WP:NOTADVOCATE. Why are our articles matter - why there is all the intensity over them - is that the policy issues about e-cigs are still being worked out worldwide. Our articles are (probably?) shaping public opinion somewhat.

In my view, the core of the ongoing conflict has been between:
 * those who focus on e-cigs as a kind of fun hobby and advocate for free use of e-cigs and minimal regulation, and minimize health risks, and want to emphasize the fun stuff - the gadgetry etc, and
 * those who take a public health perspective on this and want to represent the views of the medical establishment (a precautionary approach that calls for significant regulation due to the unknown risks of long-term e-cig use and the very clear risk of getting a whole new generation hooked on nicotine)
 * What is particularly messy, are the issues of whether e-cigs can help people stop smoking and if so, if that is a good thing - the medical establishment has been somewhat divided on this view (don't know where it stands now) and the "hobby" advocates push the "e-cigs help people stop smoking" angle

Relevant to advocacy, is
 * This posting at COIN concerning, who is the head of a Danish nonprofit e-cig advocacy organization. Although he argued at COIN that he has no significant COI against pretty much everyone else who commented there, after that posting he has generally stopped editing directly but has continued on Talk (Note - Kim appears to be on Euro-vacation presently).
 * until July 23 had a very clear statement of "hobby" advocacy on his User page.
 * The articles have been subject to SOCKing by "hobby" advocates -- see CheesyAppleFlake as well as FergusM1970, whose SPI archive is quite long
 * The topic seems to attract WP:SPA editors (or make otherwise HERE editors into SPAs)  e.g, who accepted a voluntary topic ban for 6 months for SPA/advocacy for the "stop smoking/hobbyist" view here

btw If I am in a "camp" here, it is in the public health camp, coming from WP:MED as I do. And I'll note that while is doing his somewhat berserker thing here, it is keeping the hobbyist advocacy at bay, which is a valuable service to Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 02:41, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * reply to . I didn't mean to imply that "everyone who disagrees with QuackGuru is WP:NOTHERE"; please don't infer that. What I would ask you to keep in mind is that QuackGuru has endured at that article, while new pro-e-cig advocates keep coming and coming. Jytdog (talk) 12:17, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry but your claim that for someone to be editing in violation of WP:NOTADVOCACY they need to be part of some outside group, has no basis in WP policies or guidelines nor (if I may be so bold) in the community's experience. We deal with individuals who come to WP hellbent on X (you pick) every day. It is often pretty easy to identify edits by an advocate (a pattern of edits that violate NPOV in one direction), but it is just about impossible to tell just from the edits, if the advocate is "just" a fan/hater, or if part of a fan/hater group, or has some external connection that constitutes a COI, or has a COI in which the connection is a contract to edit (there are some clues that signal one of those, but just clues). And OUTING as the community currently lives it, limits what we can explore and say about external relationships of any kind, unless they are disclosed on-wiki. So we look at edits by individuals to see if they constitute advocacy.Jytdog (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Johnbod
- now 500 Johnbod (talk) 03:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I was Wikipedian-in-Residence at Cancer Research UK (CRUK) for 9 months in 2014-15 (but views here are my own). I have rarely edited the main article, and don't have the energy to follow the talk page in full.
 * 1) The division by SMcCandlish above of those involved into 4 groups (likewise Jytdog) misses the division among the medical and public health establishment. Essentially research has not had time to catch up with the explosive growth in use of e-cigs over a few years, a situation which is beginning to ease. All mainstream medical thinking agrees that research has not yet provided the clear evidence needed to assess the risks of vaping. Meanwhile some think that vaping should be strongly discouraged, regulated and restricted, and others think that if it helps people to stop smoking better than other methods it is almost certain to be a good thing, as whatever risks eventually emerge are unlikely to be nearly as serious as those of cigarettes. To over-simplify, the US medical establishment and so government, plus the WHO, believe the former, and the UK and EU medical establishment (including CRUK) and governments, plus assorted other parties, believe the latter. But neither are all that confident in their positions. There are a raft of unanswered questions that bear on this: Does vaping cause serious harm? Does vaping stop people smoking? Will never-smokers (especially the young) take up vaping? Are there ingredients in some e-cigs/juice that cause more harm than others? What are the effects of regulation? What will happen in the Third World?


 * Published research studies have been emerging at a faster rate over the last two years, & will continue to do so, though remember the true harm of cigarettes takes 20+ years to appear. I believe the gap is closing slightly, and probably mostly in favour of e-cigs. But there is a long way to go. For example research addressing the plethora of specific ingredients in e-cigs has still to emerge. Presentation of the mainstream medical/public health view needs to deal with a broad spectrum of views.


 * 2)The volume of editing on the article and its talk page makes participation ridiculously demanding. This partly because of the interest the page attracts, and the uncertainties around a rapidly expanding practice and research area. It is also down to some of the individuals involved. It is not surprising if only the very motivated last the course, and this includes those with advocacy positions. The article does not read well, partly because it is a string o'factoids, partly because of too many cooks, and partly because of the style of at least one key editor, User:QuackGuru. Paras 2 & 3 of the lead are an example of this, or the "Frequency" section, which abounds with all-but-contradictions, a problem throughout the article. Bluerasberry above makes good points - the article does improve, but at a snail's pace. You could say the current confused article reflects the current state of research, but what readers make of it, who knows?  Johnbod (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Response to Yobol
You're basing your evidence on Wikipedia articles? I stand by what I said. No government anywhere is yet recommending the use of e-cigs, nor are they likely to for some time. The differences are seen in the wordings adopted in various statements aimed at a variety of different audiences, from doctors to the general public. Johnbod (talk) 12:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Part 2: But the coverage of countries other than the US & UK is thin, and that outside the Anglosphere virtually non-existent. On another point, by the criteria you use, QuackGuru is clearly an SPA - why does your list not mention him? His last few thousand edits are, except for a couple of hundred on acupuncture, almost all e-cig related. Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Doc James
I like User:Bluerasberry summary. I have provided a bit of clarification of S Marshall's statements below. Agree that this is an exceedingly controversial topic. The literature is unclear. And there are billions of dollars on the line. The issue with socks / paid editors of the like of User:FergusM1970 can be dealt with as they appear.

S Marshall
My comment regarding S Marshall's tagging of the article was Your drive by tagging is disruptive User:S Marshall which I guess may be the point".

This reply followed the adding of three tags to the lead with a note "Tag. Please get a consensus on the talk page before you remove the tag. QuackGuru, this means you"

This is what these tags looked like. They took up a length of about 25% of the lead. And each of the three tags more or less said the same thing. Three similar tags to complain about too much repetition or redundancy seems pointy. And ecigs is our 39th most viewed medical article for 2014. Plus this follow him requesting that the lead be much shorter.

Reply to S Marshall
User:S Marshall I do not see you as bad faith or an advocate. I just disagreed with some of the cosmetic changes you were suggesting.

Support for QG
QG is not only tolerated but supported because he follows WP:V, ie he generally uses high quality secondary sources per WP:MEDRS.

Concerns
A number of editors have shown up to the talk page to state how badly the article is written. It is unclear if the issue is with the writing style or that they disagree with with the underlying content. It often appears to be the latter.

A sentence such as "The benefits and health risks of electronic cigarettes are uncertain." is short, clear, and to the point. It is written in easy to understand English which we at WP:MED consider more important than excellent prose.

Evidence presented by Johnuniq
I noticed this topic on a noticeboard and made some minor contributions during an unfortunate November 2014 RfC. I have occasionally observed developments and commented at ANI but have no other involvement.

QuackGuru has made many good edits to the e-cig pages
Others will point out any defects, so it is important to record that QG has made hundreds of good edits to develop Electronic cigarette; examples:
 * 20 April 2014 significant fact added to lead
 * 22 April 2014 minor fact added to lead
 * 4 May 2014 minor reword with ref
 * 20 May 2014 minor addition with ref
 * 25 May 2014 minor adjustments and additions with ref
 * 27 May 2014 minor addition with ref
 * 7 October 2014 five additions with refs
 * 17 October 2014 major additions with refs
 * 30 October 2014 minor addition with ref
 * 7 November 2014 minor rewording
 * 18 December 2014 add two images; adjust a third
 * 18 March 2015 minor addition with ref
 * 7 April 2015 minor addition with ref
 * 21 July 2015 minor addition of pro-e-cig information with ref
 * 29 July 2015 update of History section with refs

As illustrated in the above examples, QG's edits generally highlight what WP:MEDRS say about the effects of e-cigs and are predominantly negative. Those additions have been challenged as being unnecessary or vague, but they are core encyclopedic content and they apparently present a balanced view of what reliable sources report. (I included "apparently" to reflect the fact that I have no special knowledge of this topic and have not studied the sources; nevertheless, some quick reviews make me think QG's edits are generally a reasonable reflection of current sources.)

QG has also made many useful contributions to sub-articles; examples:
 * December 2014 significant addition with refs
 * February 2015 significant addition with refs
 * December 2014 add regulation section with refs
 * March 2015 minor addition with ref
 * July 2015 minor addition with ref
 * August 2015 added table with ref

In addition, QG has created useful additional articles: Johnuniq (talk) 09:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Cloud-chasing (electronic cigarette) May 2015
 * Electronic cigarette aerosol June 2015
 * List of vaping bans in the United States (created July 2015 by moving material from Legal status of electronic cigarettes)
 * Vape shop July 2015

Response to Georgewilliamherbert
The problem with removing polarized editors is that there are many more e-cig enthusiasts than there are editors willing to methodically use MEDRS sources to produce an encyclopedic article. If all current editors were removed, the project would be lucky to find one or two independent editors to replace those on the negative side, while many enthusiasts would be available to promote the positives. A remedy would need to be more nuanced. Johnuniq (talk) 09:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Yobol
Many of the issues surrounding this area derives from:
 * 1) ) The large number of nominally reliable sources available (which has led to unfortunate cherry-picking of sources by advocates, and makes easy summary of those sources for WP:WEIGHT purposes difficult, as these sources come in varying sizes, reliability and conclusions)
 * 2) ) The ambiguity/lack of strong evidence base in the scientific literature on which to make any definitive conclusions (which, again, has led to cherry-picking)
 * 3) ) Advocacy by e-cigarette enthusiasts, who despite trying their best to make a good article, have intentionally or not, tried to slant the article into a more "positive" position than what the evidence allows

This area is rife with SPAs, sockpuppets, paid advocate and nearly banned users
Sockpuppeteer: SPI archive here

Banned paid advocate: ANI community ban here

Voluntary removal of e-cig advocate: voluntary 6 month removal from topic after ANI report which likely would have led to a topic ban in any case. Arbitrators should also read another ANI report here see other behavioral issues.


 * I should note that AlbinoFerret's super high volume of edits to the article and talk page effectively overwhelmed everyone that was not specifically dedicated to the article for several hours per day (one need only look at the their edit history, which appears to have over 2000 edits to the topic area of e cigs from 10/2014-12/2014). That level of singleminded, and overwhelming pushing from one point of view is not healthy for collaboration or for developing a neutral article.

SPAs: The above editors are clearly SPAs; in addition the follow SPAs often formed a bloc for the "pro" e-cig viewpoint
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)
 * (struck in response to Levelledout's response above, I was going off memory and posting late in the evening, clearly my memory was off)

A quick perusal of the Electronic cigarettes and related talk page archives shows that these oftentimes these SPAs often tag team reverted, as well as !voted as a bloc in RfCs and discussions, effectively stonewalling many attempts at including information that was negative regarding e-cigs or removing material that was positive. While I'm sure there was no coordinated attempts to this, it would seem unproductive to have a large number of SPAs able to effectively derail for any significant amount of time, the building of the article by non-SPAs.

, while not a traditional SPA due to their previous wide ranging topics they edited in, has spent over 90% of their edits in the past year either on the pages of electronic cigarettes or discussing it on various policy pages or administrative boards. They also noted on their user page that they recently became the leader of a Danish e-cigarette consumer advocacy group. They also regularly voted with the above bloc, though to their credit, was not always in lock step and did !vote against this bloc occasionally as well.

Examples of voting blocs and POV pushing
An instructive case study about their bloc voting can be seen in this ANI thread, where poor behavior is regularly excused if one of the other like-minded editors is facing sanctions.

One example of a frustrating exchange and what appears to be POV pushing can be seen in the archive. Starting at the 7th bullet, a discussion about a report by the World Health Organization (arguably one of the most reliable medical sources available) is beset by strawman arguments like made up criteria for reliability such as the non-existent requirement of ISBN numbers by KimDabelsteinPetersen, nonsensical "it's not a report" by CheesyAppleFlake, and attempted derailment of the discussion by Mihaister.

Another exchange can be seen here where KimDabelsteinPetersen argues that there is a "consensus" for a position that is directly opposed to a guideline (in this case WP:MEDRS) and when challenged to demonstrate said "consensus" conveniently drops from the conversation. This seems to be a recurring tactic to "win" the argument be declaring "consensus" without being able to demonstrate it (see here for another example of made up "consensus") that didn't turn out to be real, as noted in QuackGuru's evidence above.

While I'm sure there are more examples, these are the only ones that stuck out as particularly egregious to me for me to remember, before I largely abandoned the topic area due to sheer frustration.

The net result is that SPAs with agendas, if allowed to edit or filibuster on talk pages unhindered, can literally tie up a suite article for months. Good faith editors with wide range of topic interests will almost always end up leaving the dispute topic area, because they have neither the energy or desire that SPA advocates do for that topic. This will ultimately lead to a situation in which the only people who end up editing the area are those who are unusually stubborn or are advocates, a mix that is not likely to be beneficial to an already controversial area.

Reply to Johnbod
I think your reading of the position of the medical establishment is off by a bit. While it is true that many (though not all) UK medical groups have been more optimistic about electronic cigarettes, I have seen no evidence that this optimism is widely seen outside the UK. See Positions of medical organizations regarding electronic cigarettes, where all major cited international organizations are skeptical, and the only cited positions that are optimistic come from the UK. It is more of a UK vs the world situation, it seems, and while the broad spectrum of views need to be represented in our articles, the due weight and emphasis of those views need to reflect the weight of the whole world (in this case, the UK's optimistic view seems to be very much in the minority). Yobol (talk) 04:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Further reply to Johnbod
Actually, I'm basing it off the Wikipedia article because I basically wrote the vast majority of it. I could not find any statement from a medical organization outside of the UK that was as optimistic of e-cigs as those UK orgs, so I feel your characterization of the existing worldwide medical views is off. I, of course, may be wrong, as there may be medical statements out in other languages that I do not read that support it as much as the UK ones do, or I did not find ones that are out there. However, the available data does not support your framing of the worldwide medical community's reaction to e-cigs. Yobol (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is the right venue for this discussion, though I will point out that there are 36 sources in that article, 5 of which are from international medical organizations (of varying stature)and cover 8 countries in specific. Of those 36 sources, only 3 are optimistic about the role of e-cigs at this time, and all are from the UK. I leave it to others to conclude what they will from this.  Yobol (talk) 15:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Reply to S Marshall
No, none of my diffs relate to the period post imposition of community sanctions. I have largely ignored the goings-on in the area since earlier this year due to the tendentious behaviors. Yobol (talk) 19:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Intro
Agree with DocJames and Yobol: substantial and continuing e-cigarette advocacy has been a real problem. It varies from disruptive all the way to moving the page toward a commercial. And it has been characterized by demonizing anyone who is even skeptical of e-cigarette claims.

A case in point is QG. QG has made numerous improvements to the main e-cigarette page, and created and developed three new pages QG's contributions are well documented. But QG is clearly skeptical of e-cigarette claims. And attacks on QG by e-cigarette advocates have been constant and endless.

I could also cite CFCF and Doc James. They have been skeptical of e-cigarette claims; they they have been attacked. Anyone who dares suggest that the evidence does not support e-cigarette claims, gets pushback, abuse, motivations questioned, out-and-out demonizing. It's really tiresome. And it's lowering the quality of the page. High quality sources and content that doesn't make e-cigarettes advocates happy is challenged, deleted, watered down.Cloudjpk (talk) 00:56, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Behavioral issues
An outstanding example in 2014 was Albinoferret. I think the record is clear enough on that. But sadly they were hardly the only one.

Response to GeorgeWilliamHerbert
Removing all polarising editors in all camps from the e-cigarette topic area will create more problems because the e-cigarette advocates outnumber everyone else. Restricting e-cigarette advocacy will help resolve the problems. The problems are the content they oppose and delete. Cloudjpk (talk) 00:56, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}
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