Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 76

Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough (April 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Rich Farmbrough, 04:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC).


 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 2
 * 2) Motion 2


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request


 * Information about amendment request


 * Strike motion 2
 * Modify Remedy 2

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
The previous arbitration case defined an automaton tool in principle 3.1 "An automation tool is a technology designed to facilitate making multiple similar edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually."

A "remedy" was passed (Remedy 2) "Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia...."

Presumably, since the drafting arbitrator had defined "automation tool", and since the initial complaint was that automation tools had been used in a way that caused issues disruption, by making multiple similar edits, automation tools is what is meant here. The actual wording is overboard and unenforceable.

For this reason I request that:

Request 1
The text of the first sentence of remedy 2 be forthwith changed to:

"Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation tool whatsoever on Wikipedia to make multiple similar edits."

Request 2
A, hopefully unintended, side effect of is my inability to archive my talk page, (possibly) to create lists of articles for people to work on and make other perfectly innocuous changes. Therefore I request the following to be added to Remedy 2.

"This shall not apply to pages in Rich Farmbrough's own User; And User talk: area."

I note that a similar request was turned down two years ago as being "too soon." I hope this no longer applies.

Request 3
Motion 2 (which has been described by arbitrators as "draconian") was introduced in somewhat heated circumstances. I had mis-clicked on a tool I was using to compile lists and prepare text and made two "automated edits". Much ABF followed, together with many unfounded accusations and threats to bring out the ban-hammer. Nonetheless, the existing remedies were quite sufficient for a one-month block to be enacted. Given this the imposition of an additional editing restriction, especially one as broad reaching as this seems pointless.

Motion 2 has been subject to much abuse, resulting in a years block over an edit that added references to a page, but caused an error due to the wholly manual omission of a "/". It was even suggested that editing the page to insert the missing "/" constituted automated editing.

Neither this, nor the subsequent request for AE, nor any other complaint based on the Motion 2 have had anything to do with "making multiple similar edits" - the effect has been not to prevent disruption but to create disruption.

Moreover the Motion forbids such simple tasks as cutting and pasting, making even raising this request sanctioanble. I have given elsewhere examples of perfectly normal, not say essential, editing techniques which are banned by this Motion 2. I will repeat them here if requested.

So request 3 is:

"Strike Motion 2"

@. I think you confuse me with someone else. With the possible exception of the series of edits correcting the my own spelling error "Vertebrate zoology" to "Vertebrate Zoology", for which I apologized profusely and was blocked for a month two years ago, no-one has even suggested that I have done the type of multiple edits that allegedly caused disruption.

You might also want to look at some of the other parts of the case. For example this edit was considered a reason to remove my admin bit. And yet you can "sigh" in your edit summary with no consequences.

All I am trying to achieve here, is to restore sanity to the editing restrictions, not to remove them, however flawed they are. I can see no way these requested changes can harm the project, even if the manifest WP:ABF were justified.

I would really appreciate being treated in a courteous manner, and have the issues addressed, rather than coded and not so coded insults.

However, I will make an additional effort to move the dialogue forward: Suggest, please, an editing task which I could take on which would not violate Motion 2?

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 21:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

@Newyorkbrad, most certainly. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 12:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC).

@ It's not nice to say that there were problems with my bots. If you look at the workshop even my most vociferous critic said "His bot edits (Helpful Pixie Bot mainly) generally fall under a), both authorized and correct. "

There are no "findings" relating to errors in bot edits, or indeed to any errors.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 14:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC).

@ I just read your comment again. I think that the point of the sanctions is supposed to be to protect the encyclopaedia. The idea that the sanctions themselves are important for their own sake is a very un-wiki idea. If the sanctions are only being perpetuated because it is believed that I have, will or want to break them, it is a bad case of the tail wagging the dog.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 14:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC).

Statement by Pine on the amendment request
Without wading into the details of Rich's motion I am hoping Arbcom can come up with a solution that will eliminate the need for constant supervision of Rich's situation, and reduce the frequency of trips to arbitration and arbitration enforcement pages. I think the original sanctions were intended to prevent disruption but if they have become an obstacle to Rich being a non-disruptive contributor and are frequently discussed at great length on arbitration and arbitration enforcement pages then I think it's time for a change. --Pine ✉ 07:01, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This is going to reveal that I haven't researched deeply into Rich's case beyond seeing how much text it has produced over the years, but wouldn't it be easy to have an arbitration remedy that prohibits disruptive automated editing, and leave the enforcement of that to the discretion of AE, ANI, and BASC? --Pine ✉ 07:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * WormTT's ideas are similar to what I have in mind after looking more at Rich's requests. ArbCom could specifically discuss using cut, copy, paste, replace, spellcheck, and replace all tools that don't involve bot work, and consider making an exception for Rich's userspace. Restrictions on other bot or automated activity outside of Rich's userspace would remain. Rich would need to be very careful that any automated work intended for his userspace doesn't leak into other areas. --Pine ✉ 01:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I have added other comments about Rich's situation under the clarification request. --Pine ✉ 06:55, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {yet another user}
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Here's what you are (deliberately?) not getting: The "too soon" response is not just meant to say that time needs to pass, it means that you need to spend some time where you are unblocked, actively editing, and not doing anything that could possibly be interpreted as violating or testing the boundaries of your current sanctions. So, yeah, still too soon for my taste. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Just thinking out loud here, what would be the downside of exempting Rich's own userspace from the restriction? (Actually, I can think of one myself: that Rich would create buggy articles in userspace and then port them to mainspace. Rich, can you assure us you wouldn't do that?) Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:54, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * More or less what you said there. IT's been a longstanding area of concern, and although that would be a good place to start loosening restrictions now is not a good time to be doing that. NativeForeigner Talk 22:44, 20 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Speedily dismiss as essentially duplicating the clarification request. AGK  [•] 10:16, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Rich's sanctions were put in place to stop the past issues whilst retaining the editor. They were draconian and understandably so, but they haven't worked. We've now got two options, give up and block indefinitely or clarify the sanctions so that they keep the problems from re-occurring, whilst also being something Rich can work within. I spent a while trying to think of how best to phrase it, but simply put this motion was pretty much the solution I would have come up with. It's clear what we are currently referring to as "automation": 1) Numerous similar edits across multiple pages - i.e. traditional "bot" editing 2) Non-trivial find and replace across a single page - i.e. any find and replace that would require regex involvement. Also, "find and replace all" will fall under this. Each replacement should be checked manually. 3) Any other scripted manipulations of text, either directly performed on-wiki or performed off-wiki and moved on. We were never just looking at number 1, so I'd deny Rich's first request outright. Regarding the userspace exemption, this would instantly sort the below clarification request. It's not generally an unreasonable request and I would be amenable to it in the future - possibly after 6 months of good editing. The very existence of the clarification request below does not give me sufficient faith that it would not be abused at the moment, so I would deny Rich's second request for the time being. Finally, motion 2, per my previous comments - is not something I'd be willing to remove at the moment. Worm TT( talk ) 10:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * By what measure, Dave, hasn't the restriction worked? The main page hasn't been tagged uncategorised recently; the boards aren't filled with people complaining; the bots aren't re-running to fix earlier errors (and introduce new ones). The lack of high-speed disruption looks pretty good to me,  Roger Davies  talk 11:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * We have two clarification requests, multiple emails and discussions in other fora regarding Rich within 3 weeks of his block expiring. That spells "something not right" to me. That said, I can't see any better solution. Worm TT( talk ) 11:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The notion that someone is only able to archive their talk page by running a custom bot beggars belief. In a nutshell, the issue here is that Rich appears incapable of being completely satisfied with anything unless he has automated it. Summarily dismiss,  Roger Davies  talk 11:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, . The lesson of Rich's history, I'm afraid, is that no matter how much care he is asked to exercise, this stuff will leak into user space. The problem, for me, with the search-and-replace that triggered this was that he made a search, without appreciating that it contained a wildcard, which had unintended consequences. He then saved without review. This typifies the problems of the past and is precisely the reason why this restriction is so strict.  Roger Davies  talk 06:10, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily a "custom" bot; could Rich permissibly sign up for any of the archiving bots? Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Frankly,, signing up for third-party archiving has never been covered by this restriction. What Rich is asking for here is to run his own custom automated archiving. If anyone has the energy to find it, he has requested this before (and been denied).  Roger Davies  talk 06:10, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * My own talk page has 32 archives, all of which I managed to create without any sort of automated tool. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline. T. Canens (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline, but allow Rich to use a bot to archive his talk page. I can't imagine how permitting him to do that could a. lead to disruption and b. be contentious. Salvio Let's talk about it! 17:23, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I presume you mean a third-party bot?  Roger Davies  talk 06:10, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes. If Rich wants to use a bot such as Cluebot III to archive his talk page, then I say he should be allowed to do so. If he, on the other hand, wants to run his own bot for that purpose, then, no, that's not what I had in mind. Salvio Let's talk about it! 12:46, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Decline but note that Rich is encouraged to use Cluebot III or equivalent third party bot as an archiving tool. NativeForeigner Talk 22:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:55, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Clarification request: Rich Farmbrough (April 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Hasteur (talk) at 20:34, 23 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Clarifying Motion of April 20th 2014

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
 * (initiator)
 * Notified

Statement by Hasteur
I seek clarification as to the extent of which the ban on automation extends. A request was made at Bot requests seeking a bot operator to design a highly customized talk page archiving bot based on multiple rules and targeting. Based on this I seek clarification as to what line does a completely manual edit flip over to being automation when the edit triggers a automated response. Does a Rube Goldberg invention of triggered automation cross the line over what is considered automated? Hasteur (talk) 20:34, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I specifically ask the committee to clarify if the signaling method proposed violates the spirit of "No automation" as explicitly defined by the just recently closed Clarifying motion. I ask that the committee not shirk it's duty by speedy declining this clarification request. It doesn't make sens for me or any other bot operator to code such a complicated archiving bot when there are many other options available for archiving in addition to the very singular use case (to replace a archiving bot that was coded by the topic banned editor wrote).  Furthermore, when I read the action (also recalling the recent debate regarding the clarification motion) I saw that this was attempting to push at the edges of automating. Hasteur (talk) 14:12, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I may be a big boy, but as one who was sanctioned by this committee recently, so I am attempting to be above and beyond the minimum standards of complying with the rules. Right now there are very few people who are keeping an eye on the Bot Requests noticeboard (to the point that multiple requests are being archived off without ever having even a simple response to them). So the very small pool of bot operators who are willing to take on tasks that they did not want is even smaller so it's always the same few editors resolving the requests. Hasteur (talk) 14:21, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
This is pretty much what Femto Bot used to do, with corrections and minor upgrades. The committee seemed agreeable to having another editor run Femto Bot's code last time it was mentioned. This request is for a more robust version, notably it would be resistant to attempts by other users to manipulate it, and would be more scalable, being event driven rather scheduled. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 23 April 2014 (UTC).


 * @Beebelbrox. I have about 90 talk page archives, and it should be about 115, once catching up is done. I am used to a far busier talk-page than you, including matters I want to archive very quickly, and matters that need to be discussed over a period of months.
 * However that is somewhat irrelevant. You may choose to walk everywhere, and tell the time by the sun and stars, but I prefer to use a bicycle and a chronometer. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:17, 23 April 2014 (UTC).


 * In view of the wholly negative response form arbs here I am withdrawing my request at BOT requests.


 * I will remind Arbs that I have done exactly what they suggested at the original request


 * Request someone else run my archiving bot for me.


 * wait and ask again when we are not so cross.


 * Of course I shall now have to sign up for a less functional solution. Cluebot III is completely useless if one wants by-month archiving, by the way.  I hope Lowercase sigma bot will work, but I suspect it make undesired changes to headers.


 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:56, 23 April 2014 (UTC).

@AGK "I am actually thinking the automation restriction is utterly unenforceable" well, you shouldn't have voted for such stupid restrictions in the first place! Instead think about what is good for the encyclopaedia! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:58, 23 April 2014 (UTC).

@ - I created a custom bot because I needed it. I think others would had found it useful too, had I made it as robust as would have been required for a general purpose bot. Similar degrees of complexity apply to existing bots, for example they create and head up new archives as needed, and can provide some forms of indexing.

I used four general bots before switching to my own. Running my own allowed me to be more responsive to user concerns, by keeping unfinished business on the page, and clearing dealt with items quickly away.

In the request for permission to run Femto Bot, Sladen reported that a kind offer had been made to run the bot for me. There were no objections at the time. Funny how it's now seen as major problem. I however do not stop assuming good faith, where it is deserved, simply believing that people are not as "dispassionate" as they would like to claim, and are reacting emotionally. That is absolutely fine, and emotion is not out of place here. However I would urge people who wish do deliver judgements to try to separate the factual, the procedural and the intentional.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 06:31, 25 April 2014 (UTC).

Statement by ErikHaugen
I am sure that it strikes me as a poor use of our bot-coding editors' time and effort—@Newyorkbrad I sincerely hope you are not saying this in any kind of official capacity. It appears as though you mean to dictate what people spend their time on. Hopefully, you instead simply meant this as an idle expression of bewilderment about something that you don't understand.

This appears to be something genuinely useful to certain people. Not to me; I obviously don't get the kind of talk page traffic that would necessitate this kind of thing. But if someone wants to build it what is the harm in RF outlining the specification? Surely his restrictions don't preclude him from suggesting automation tasks to others?

The idea that RF triggering this bot would be a violation of his restriction is completely absurd. The tool and its effects would be completely someone else's responsibility. His alleged carelessness and obstinate attitude (IIUC the root cause of his restrictions) would not be an issue here at all. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 23:02, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Salvio—"just use Cluebot III or some other bot like that" — Isn't that what he's trying to do? If someone makes the suggested bot, then it will be "some other bot like that"—what is the problem? What do you mean by "decline" in this context? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 21:33, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Worm_That_Turned—you realize that this request wasn't filed by RF, right? I'm not sure what your point is in noting that this is the 6th one; I don't know why it was filed, but it wasn't RF's idea as far as I can tell. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 21:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf
If the Committee wants to absolve itself of all credibility as a body willing and capable of resolving disputes to the benefit of the encyclopaedia it's going about it in the right way.

On the other hand the Committee could get their heads out of their posteriors and articulate what Rich's topic ban is actually intended to achieve, why that needs to be achieved, and how the restriction is intended to achieve that. Until such time as the community understand the purpose of the restriction (which these endless requests demonstrate it does not) it cannot reliably enforce it. You (the Committee) regularly ask admins to enforce the spirit of the rules, referencing the letter to determine that. In this case we cannot do that - the letter is ambiguous and the spirit changes depending on who asks and who answers.

If you aren't prepared to do your jobs in this regard, you can at least retain the basic decency to answer the simple, specific questions asked:
 * 1) Is Rich allowed to specify automation tasks that will be run by someone else?
 * 2) If not, where is the line drawn and why? Thryduulf (talk) 23:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

It has just occurred to me that if this is declined then we also need answers to other questions about what is an is not acceptable:
 * If Rich uses an off-the-shelf bot and finds it isn't working correctly, is he allowed to
 * 1) Enquire about its operation? (e.g discuss which options it has to determine if the bot will do what he wants, and how it will do that).
 * 2) Report a bug with the bot?
 * 3) Discuss bugs with the bot reported by others?
 * 4) Suggest resolutions to issues with the bot?
 * 5) Request features be added to the bot?
 * 6) Discuss features he has requested to be added to the bot?
 * 7) Discuss features others have requested to be added to the bot?
 * 8) Report bugs with features he has requested added to the bot?

For each "no" answer, please explain why he should not be allowed to do that in terms of benefit to the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 09:31, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment by lfdder
I'd like to hear what's wrong with Rich's conduct, 'cause I (and I think many others) see absolutely no issue with it. To suggest that we ought to ban him for it is utterly bewildering. — lfdder 00:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Beetstra

 * "... but I am sure that it strikes me as a poor use of our bot-coding editors' time and effort." - surely, we have 4 archiving bots, that has then already been a massive poor use of time and effort for the other 3 programmers who wrote one after the first. I find that belittling, Brad, bot operators are free to do whatever they want to use time and effort poorly on.  The community, nor the Arbitration Committee, have no say about what has to be programmed for them.

Regarding the whole, if one of those 4 bots would have this way of working already, you would not have a problem with Rich using that. You do not have problems with Rich setting the user-options for one of those that already exist, making it operate every 3, 5 or 13 days. You have no objections against Rich asking another Bot Operator to repair typo's for him. You do not have problems with another bot operator having a bot delivering messages to Rich's talkpage (where he has/d to opt-in). You do not have problems with bots signing messages left on his talkpage. You do not have problems with other bots notifying him of 'problems' with his edits (BracketBot). You DO have problems with this?

And if now an independent bot-programmer comes and thinks 'I like this, I want this on my talkpage', uses his time poorly to write the bot, tests it, gets permission and runs it on his talkpage, and makes it available to the larger community, do you have a problem that Rich switches to that bot, or are you going to ban him immediately?

AGK is right, this is a badly designed, poorly worked out decision, resulting in poor use (and actually a massive waste) of our community's time. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:55, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * I still don't understand why Rich apparently insists that automation is necessary to archive his talk page. I have been regularly archiving my talk page for seven years. I am currently up to 32 archives, all done without any automation at all. If someone as technically unskilled as myself can manage that I don't see why Rich is unable to just do it himself. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:30, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I sympathized with Rich's position in the threads we closed the other day, to a greater extent than any other arbitrator, and asked whether applying the no-automation restriction to Rich's userspace served much of a purpose, a question that no one actually answered. That being said, I also do not see why one of the existing archiving bots wouldn't suffice, and I fear that the hypercomplicated signaling protocol that Rich proposes for the bot comes perilously close to self-parody. In terms of the request, I am not sure whether Rich's asking someone else to code a highly tailored archive-bot for him violates the letter of the existing restriction ... but I am sure that it strikes me as a poor use of our bot-coding editors' time and effort. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @ErikHaugen, my "official capacity" doesn't extend to picking bot tasks, so no worries there. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:14, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * What Brad says: Rich, just use Cluebot III or some other bot like that. Speedy decline. Salvio Let's talk about it! 22:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, in this instance it would violate the restriction. Speedily decline. AGK  [•] 23:26, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thryduulf: In this case, I am actually thinking the automation restriction is utterly unenforceable, and that Rich's conduct – and the problems with it, as documented in the original arbitration case – can only be regulated with a remedy to exclude him from the project altogether. AGK  [•] 23:29, 23 April 2014 (UTC)


 * This appears to be yet another example of Rich poking around the boundaries of his restriction, this time by effectively pseudocoding a bot. I would encourage Rich to manually archive his talk page, if he desires such precise formatting, or to use an existing bot. I'd also encourage him to quit testing the boundaries, although the number of times this has been said recently is not encouraging. Speedily decline this request. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Speedy decline. Others above have made all the pertinent comments. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thinking on it. This isn't a speedy decline from me but it does seem like it's a bit strange for the prior tools to be inadequate. As far as I"m concerned if Hasteur wants to code one, and Rich wants to use it, so be it. But the why is still dubious to me. NativeForeigner Talk 07:56, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see why the arbs are grumpy about this, since I've been on the committee, Rich has spent about 56 days unblocked and this is the 6th clarification/amendment request. That's an inordinate amount of resources that the committee is having to spend on one person and frankly we don't have time to do so. That said, I'm of the same opinion as NativeForeigner - Hasteur is a big boy, if he wants to code a bot to Rich's specifications - it's his responsibility to ensure it meets community guidelines. As such, he'll be the one who gets the come-uppence if anything goes wrong with the bot. Should he decide to do this, then I advise him to write it carefully himself and test it thoroughly. Rich, I'm generally unimpressed that you took the tentative agreement by a few committee members to archive your talk page using existing bots as free rein to wander over to the bot request notice board and ask for a custom made bot. It's exactly that sort of behaviour that stops people from assuming good faith with your behaviour. Worm TT( talk ) 10:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not in my eyes, any more than making an edit that would make User:BracketBot or User:DisambigBot come to my page, or User:SineBot sign an unsigned post. As long as he's not writing the bot and the bot owner takes full responsibility for the bot, a manual edit which leads to a bot action should not be counted as automated. Asking for a bot to be written is close to the banned area, and that's where my problem lies. Worm TT( talk ) 14:22, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Tea Party movement (Malke 2010) (May 2014)

 * Original discussion


 * Information about amendment request

Initiated by  Malke 2010 at 21:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Principle 1
 * 2) Finding 2
 * 3) Remedy 3


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Information about amendment request


 * Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea Party movement
 * Details of desired modification:

Statement by Malke 2010
This is a request to lift the topic ban on Tea Party movement. I abandoned the article in December 2010. After that I made rare talk page comments. One of the comments lead to my inclusion in the case. During the case, I participated in the moderated discussion and made positive contributions there. Before, during and after the case, I continued to write articles. The list is here, almost all of them on viruses. I've written 120 in 12 months.

If the topic ban were lifted, I would continue on as I've been doing, focusing on virology and virology related topics, avoiding political articles and politicized articles. These seem to attract editors more interested in engaging in battle for battle's sake, and I've no interest in that. Occasionally, I do vandal patrol and I would continue with that, and the welcoming committee. I'd like to help expand WikiProject:Viruses, but that will have to wait until much later in the year as RL is very busy at the moment.


 * , I do have a specific reason. As I said above, I'm not really interested in political articles, especially the issue based, politicized ones, like Gun control, etc. They're time sinks. But I do have a particular interest in Hillary Clinton in 2016, as I sure most women in America do. I created an article on Buffy Wicks, who is taking part in the run up to Hillary declaring her intention to run. Before I wrote that article, I researched carefully to make sure the Tea Partiers had not taken exception to her in any major way (because of the Walmart thing) so I would not get caught up in something untoward. In doing so, I realized, that unfortunately, the Tea Party movement touches all areas of the American political process. It's ubiquitous, like dog-poop on a New York City sidewalk . They also have an especial dislike of Hillary. It's inevitable that I could come across an article and not knowing, end up in big trouble. That would put me off doing any editing on any articles relating to her campaign, etc.


 * sorry about the analogy, I didn't mean they were dog-poop, just that they are everywhere like dog poop in NYC. No offense intended on New York City.


 * There is nowhere in my editing history after 2010, where I engaged on topics involving the tea party or any other other political arguments, or any arguments on any topic for that matter. There's no temptation there for me, as can be shown by my history. I'm a good editor on Wikipedia and am not focused on political topics. I'm not saying it's wrong for others to have that focus, but your argument seems to suggest that I've always been in the thick of those matters, and I've not been. You can easily see by my record on the moderated discussion, that I was collegial and always looking to compromise and settle arguments. I did not cause problems and did not engage in edit wars or get blocked or restricted, as many of the others did.


 * What should an editor demonstrate in order to have a topic ban lifted?


 * I'd abandoned the article in December 2010. I didn't see the point in it anymore. Also I was finishing graduate school, so I used the time I did have for Wikipedia for other articles. But about once a year after that, I'd stop by the talk page to see what the others were doing. It was always the same arguments. I'd make suggestions. Nothing changed. I'd leave again.


 * The last time I stopped by was in February 2013. After I'd left a comment, another editor made an incivil reply, which I ignored. Another editor came along and took it up and got into an argument with an admin over it. It looked to me like the incivil editor had asked her to come to the talk page so I made a comment to the admin about that.


 * Next thing I knew I was at ANI, then at ArbCom.


 * What went "horribly wrong?" Got caught up in the stream.


 * What would I do differently? I'm assuming you mean, going forward? I'd continue doing what I'm doing now. Not getting involved in those types of articles, and of course, don't comment on the editor, comment on the comment. And pay careful attention to WP:RS and policy. If you stay within those bounds, there shouldn't be a problem. And don't argue over it. Something is either RS or it's not, and you either have consensus or you don't. I wouldn't edit TPm again. The movement has evolved into something toxic.


 * Yes, it was a toxic environment. Some of that is due to the topic and the rest is due to the mix of editors. And on, "broadly Republican," articles, no, not interested in those.


 * That's fine. I'd still like my topic ban lifted. I'd like to not have that on my record. I've been a very good editor and made significant contributions to Wikipedia writing and improving articles. Even when I was editing TPm, I was not contentious. I initiated dispute resolution and worked to achieve consensus. I didn't edit war or display any disruptive behaviours. I was never blocked for any behaviour problems on that article.
 * I'm not going to be editing the TPm article or any related articles. I'd like my topic ban lifted. I'd like to get that off my record and also prevent any possible unknowing breach of the topic ban.

@ARBS: Can someone please explain to me why none of you seem to be reading anything I've written here? I'd like to know what does it take to get the topic ban lifted? What specifically do I have to do/demonstrate to get this ban lifted? Thanks.


 * Thank you, Ed. Malke 2010 (talk) 18:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for getting back, WTT. Yes, you're right, it should be a much longer period of time. Okay, I'll try again next year.

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
Having reviewed the case Malke's main error was extending SYTH and OR to third party sources. We absolutely expect, and need, reliable third parties to perform SYNTH and OR.

As Killer Chihuahua commented "The environment is toxic." and I believe that given that environment one might, in retrospect, be more forgiving of confrontational behaviour.

I believe that if the committee is not minded to grant the request, there is scope for a progressive statement making it clear that editing articles on broadly Republican [Democrat] (did I get that right? - [no I didn't] ) issues is no longer within the scope of the topic ban as long as editing with respect to TP articles and TP sections of articles is avoided.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC).


 * Corrected alignment. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:26, 26 April 2014 (UTC).


 * 1) "The dust has barely settled" - the case closed in September of last year!
 * 2) The evidence in the finding you refer to is very weak.  KC makes it clear in the last diff of their evidence that they think this is minor, "if you simply say words to the effect of "yeah, could have been more civil, will be in the future" I don't forsee any action being taken regarding your actions".  It is doubtful whether Malke even warranted being sanctioned over this - there are links to other matters that suggest problems in the past, but not relating to TPM.
 * 3) If you focus on the purpose of the request, it can easily fit in with former amendments/clarifications to the case, and draw the line around TPM a little more tightly than the well known problematic "broadly construed" - for example "Articles about the TP or TPM,  sections of articles when that section mentions the TP or TPM".
 * 4) Note that even this is probably unnecessary.  Malke has been editing without problem as far as I can see for some time, and mistakes of fact or misreading of policy are easily corrected and should in no way be subject to any form of sanction.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 08:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC).

Question by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge
Malke 2010, can you please tell us what went so horribly wrong last time that it required that you be topic-banned and explain to us how you plan to avoid such problems in the future? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Observation from EdChem
This finding was passed by ArbCom without dissent, including support from several still-serving Arbitrators. Whether you agree with it or not, the Arbitrators who supported it are likely to believe it is true and other Arbitrators are likely to start from the same assumption. Whether you think it is fair or not, arguing that it was flawed is almost certain to get you nowhere. Strategically, demonstrating a balanced use of academic sources and avoiding incivility in areas of controversy (ie. not near the (I presume) largely uncontroversial virology area) are more likely approaches to being given a second chance than is arguing the case was wrongly decided with respect to you. Even if ArbCom is wrong (about which I take no position), the chances of them admitting it is very low, and fighting for a reversal of their finding has the potential to be seen as battleground behaviour. You may see the topic ban as a badge of shame, and so want it removed, but the way to achieve that is to demonstrate that the reasons given for it do not apply now and leaving aside the question of whether they ever applied... that is, in my opinion, your best chance for achieving relaxation and ultimately removal of your ban. You don't have to declare that the finding is correct, but you do need to accept that it will be the starting point in their thinking. EdChem (talk) 08:18, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Malke 2010, you don't seem to mention the reason you want the topic ban lifted - is there any work that it's specifically keeping you from? I'm generally reluctant to lift topic bans without a good reason, as there are many other articles available for you to edit. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 14:55, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I may be naive here, but neither Hilary Clinton, nor Buffy Wicks would come under Tea Party Movement, which you are topic banned from. Therefore, whilst there may be parts of the articles which link through to the TPM and you should stay away from those. You should also exercise extreme care during editing those articles, but given the fact they are about to become very controversial, you should be doing that anyway. At the moment, I'm not seeing the need for any relaxation. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 14:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I apologise for taking so long to reply, I've been away for a few days. Topic bans are not dished out lightly, they are used when an editor has shown themselves to be problematic in an area. I will only consider removing them slowly, after a significant time period and with evidence of good work elsewhere. I'd also like to see good reasons for the topic ban to be removed. Now, at the moment, I've seen the good work, but not the good reasons or the significant time period. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 07:37, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Allowing a couple of days for statements from any other editors with relevant knowledge before reaching a conclusion here. My initial inclination is to allow for some relaxation but not a total lifting of the topic-ban. (A restriction against flippantly analogizing any political movement to dog poop would probably remain in place. :) ) Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline to make an exception for H. Clinton 2016 or to amend the topic ban at all. This topic area is the object of irresistible, ongoing controversy and dispute; relaxing topic bans willy-nilly is not what we need right now. AGK  [•] 22:57, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In reply to 's latest note: the onus is on you to convince us that this finding no longer poses a concern. Your request here, when the dust on the arbitration case has barely settled, does not – to my mind – do any such thing. AGK  [•] 23:13, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to agree with my cohorts--if the area is likely to become one of serious potential disputes, the best option is to back off. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 23:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I would also not see Hillary Clinton or Buffy Wicks as off limits in their entirety, though of course any portions of the article relating to the TPM would be covered under the ban. Given that the controversy over articles like these will only heat up over the coming few years, I do not believe removing the ban to be a good idea at this time. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:47, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Falun Gong 2 (May 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by   Ohc  ¡digame! at 02:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun_Gong_2
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun_Gong_2
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Falun_Gong_2

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

Statement by Ohconfucius
It has been more that 18 months since the case. Since then, I have performed tens of thousands of edits to align date formats, and have also made significant contributions to numerous articles, including developing many DYKs and several good articles. Arbcom can have faith that I can stay away from articles about the movement and from drama relating thereto. I am seeking to remove a topic ban not so that I can go back to editing articles on that sect. The ban no longer serves any purpose except to potentially prevent me from contributing to China articles to the fullest extent and to the best of my expertise and ability, and also to edit a page in my own userspace. In addition, it would be important for me to once again to restored to an editor of good standing. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 02:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The great irony is that once the topic ban came into being, I couldn't do anything to that rant without being in breach of the ban. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 16:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with that being deleted. I've long gotten over it and see no useful purpose in dwelling over the bitter past history of editors most of whom are no longer active in the project. Falun Gong isn't going to change as a result of my ranting about it, but I've been too lazy to do any housekeeping – not that I could have even mentioned it to anyone, let alone ask for it to be deleted due to the breadth of the TBAN. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 02:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The answer to that is easy. The TBAN states: "Ohconfucius is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces." The typical Arbcom "broadly construed" provision is the killer. I am afraid to death of editing any China-related article because of that provision. Jiang Zemin, Bo Xilai are the obvious ones due to their unproven roles in the alleged persecution of FLG practitioners. However, the problem is not only China articles where there is mention of Falun Gong persecution, but any article where The Epoch Times or Shen Yun are mentioned; any article where ET is quoted or cited is technically off-limits to me. As an example, I am currently working through Category:CS1 errors: dates yet I cannot correct the cs1 date error in Shen Yun. More specifically and problematically, there are Robocop admins prowling, and I can see myself blocked and/or have my ban extended for technical breaches by making even minor changes to apparently innocuous or unrelated articles such as List of newspapers in Australia and Korkoro. I trust that you can see how the breadth of the TBAN is a restraint for me. I now seek to repair my reputation – and this is the most important reason for this appeal. But if it pleases Arbcom, I would add a voluntary undertaking not to edit any article directly connected with FLG. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 02:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Heim
For what it's worth, this ban barely passed in the first place, getting through by just one vote. And there's a good reason: It was an exceedingly ill-founded ban. As two arbitrators pointed out, the evidence for Ohconfucius's POV-pushing was weak. Frankly, the rest of the committee erred in forgetting that editing with a POV is not necessarily pushing a POV; sometimes, adding a POV to an article is balancing the article. (Frankly, Wikipedia has a serious systemic bias problem with these articles because of the unwillingness of Western editors to consider an anti-FG stance for fear of being seen as pro-PRC, and ArbCom fell into this trap hook, line and sinker.) Either way, if no one can show evidence of recent problematic behaviour, this appeal should be granted. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 00:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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


 * Noting, that I changed the title of this request from Appeal request to Amendment request. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * No. And the existence of User:Ohconfucius/essay/rant about Falun Gong pages in the user space of a topic banned editor seems unwise, and I'm considering MFDing it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can WP:CSD it if you want. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm interpreting your thanking me for the edit above as "Go ahead and delete it, Floq/" Let me know if that's wrong. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Recuse. T. Canens (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I have two questions here:
 * Could you give an example of a specific page that you are prevented from editing by this TBAN that you believe you should be able to edit in a productive manner?
 * Would you like the "rant" page in your userspace deleted? I'm not trying to put you over a barrel here, just giving you a  way to be rid of it without any chance of violating the topic ban by actually editing it. Say the word and I'll zap it for you. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm liking the sound of Salvio's idea below, although I might like it better if it were six months instead of a full year. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to accept the amendment request, albeit in a slightly modified form. Instead of removing the topic ban entirely, I'd go for something along the lines of a "parole": Ohconfucius' topic ban is suspended but, for a year, any uninvolved admin may reimpose it in the event of fresh misconduct within the original area of conflict. After a year of trouble-free editing, the topic ban will automatically expire. would this solution satisfy you?  Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:20, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I would agree with SG's proposal of a year's provisional lifting, to be made a permanent removal if no problems occur and be revoked if any do. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:03, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * As there seems to be reasonable support for the provisional suspension of the remedy, I'll propose a motion tonight. Would anyone else like to weigh in as to how long the probationary period should last? Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I like Salvio's idea of a provisional suspension. I personally feel like one year would make sense to ensure all is well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Motion
For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators, not counting 2 who are inactive and 1 who is recused, so 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

The Committee resolves that remedy 2 (Ohconfucius topic-banned) in the Falun Gong 2 arbitration case is suspended for the period of one year from the date of passage of this motion. During the period of suspension, any uninvolved administrator may, as an arbitration enforcement action, reinstate the topic ban on Ohconfucius should Ohconfucius fail to follow Wikipedia behavior and editing standards while editing in the topic area covered by the suspended restriction. In addition, the topic ban will be reinstated should Ohconfucius be validly blocked by any uninvolved administrator for misconduct in the topic area covered by the suspended restriction. Such a reinstatement may be appealed via the normal process for appealing arbitration enforcement actions. After one year from the date of passage of this motion, if the ban has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the topic ban will be repealed.


 * Enacted - Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Support
 * Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Worth trying. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 18:58, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Beeblebrox (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Weakly. AGK  [•] 23:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * With the request that Ohconfucius steer well clear of matters of controversy in this area. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:10, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 07:18, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose


 * Abstain


 * Comments by arbitrators
 * Motion carried. Clerk to post and notify. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Abortion (May 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Anythingyouwant (talk) at 22:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 9


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)


 * Information about amendment request


 * Link to remedy
 * Request: Termination

Statement by Anythingyouwant
This seems like an opportune time to request lifting a topic-ban imposed on me in 2011. ArbCom has just finished a case (gun control) in which my contributions were scrutinized, so making this request now seems timely given that I am fresh on your minds. I was “indefinitely topic-banned from abortion-related pages, broadly construed”. During that case, I repeatedly made very clear to ArbCom that I objected to accusers going over the word-limits, and said that I would not exceed my word-limits to address accusations which exceeded the accuser's word limits, unless given permission by ArbCom to do so, and I was not given permission. I don’t know what your rules say now, but back then they said this: Keep your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely...Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs....Please reduce your evidence submission to fit within the appropriate limits. I made very clear my objections to violation of this rule, and my intention not to violate it. As to the two accusations back then which I did not address for the reasons described above, they were mostly false. On the first, all I did was quote a book, not realizing that a later edition changed the quote, and I didn't object at all when I was corrected (I was even thanked for correcting a further error made by the person who corrected me). On the second accusation, I made a policy edit merely intended to clarify what the policy already said, it would not have advanced my position anymore than anyone else's even if it had been a new policy requirement, I said upfront that it related to an article I recently edited, and I did not refer to the policy at the article talk page until weeks later (long after other editors had discussed and modified my edit at the policy page, and without having had any intention to refer to the policy---which intention unfortunately cannot be proved).

Even if you regard these accusations and the remedy as legitimate (I don't), then perhaps you might think that several years is "indefinite" enough. I'd appreciate that. If you would like further diffs to substantiate any of this statement of mine, then just ask. Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @NYB: Brad, I have not looked at Wikipedia’s abortion-related and pregnancy-related articles in several years, so I cannot say how I would be inclined to edit them.  I have no desire to dive back in anytime soon, at least not in a big way, that’s for sure. Eventually, maybe I’d start a new sub-article; in May of 2011, I made this comment at one of those pages, suggesting creation of a new sub-article about biological facts that are cited by either side of the abortion dispute (I said "there isn't any comprehensive article on this subject, and it would be good to have one, at least as a sub-article of this Wikipedia article").  So, I might want to someday work on something like that.  I think the issue that really got me into trouble at the main abortion article (i.e. the real issue) was that I supported keeping an image that had been in the article for a year, showing what it is that is aborted in a typical abortion (which occurs at about 8 weeks after conception/fertilization).  So, I might support inclusion of something like that; Wikipedia has a no-censorship policy ostensibly, and I think removal of such an image without consensus violated that policy and others (especially when you consider some of the images that Wikipedia does allow in its articles).  But I have no desire to jump back into this anytime soon.  At the very least, I would have to get back up to speed on the subject, and on the coverage that Wikipedia currently provides.  I certainly am not going to edit any of these articles if I am under a sanction that says "Anyone can topic-ban Anythingyouwant for the slightest bullshit reason."  Been there, done that.
 * Regarding "misrepresentation" of sources, I will not do one little iota of a thing differently, because the accusation in this case was phony. As for editing policy pages, an arbitrator once told me: "This is Wikipedia, and we don't create or modify policies based on hypotheticals."  But I understand now that more care is needed when editing policies based on non-hypotheticals, and would exercise same.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @Mastcell, you know very well that the user in question denied (repeatedly) that the Nazis were tyrants, and said that they were in a worse category than tyrants. I said repeatedly that I was not accusing that user of having any sympathy with Nazis, while trying my damnedest to disagree with that user's absurd  contention that they were not tyrants.  Mastcell, let me just say right here in black and white: you are accusing me of a hideous offense knowing very well that it is false.  And I find this entirely typical of you.  If people want diffs, I will provide diffs.  MastCell dragged me through countless unsuccessful administrative actions in the past that failed because they were frivolous.  But he hit the jackpot by exceeding his word limits in this arbcom case.  And I fully expect Arbcom to do his bidding again.  I say: go for it.  I hope it makes you feel proud.  You can see that MastCell makes me mad, and if being mad is against ArbCom rules, then go ahead and drop the boom.  Your comment below is utterly disgraceful, MC .Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @Arbitrators: Before this case was officially closed, I made further protests regarding the word limits to both the drafting arbitrator (at his talk page) and to ArbCom generally.  No one said one word about any misinterpretation of the rules by me, or that they could be circumvented by using talk pages.  I am inclined to withdraw this request right now, but instead will let it keep going for awhile more.  I don't expect that there will be any further requests from me on this score, so it will be a firm lifetime ban.  I note that you have not said a word of criticism about MC's accusation below.  So I infer that you are unconcerned about lies and character assassination, which are your necessary tools for controlling Wikipedia content. Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:53, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @AGK. I went and looked at the evidence page for this case, and it says nothing about "1000 words".Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nor did Your manual say "1000" back then. It said "500".Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I am not raising this procedural issue belatedly; I provided diffs today pointing to where I raised the issue in 2011, and I raised it repeatedly. Considering that I raised this issue at least four times back in 2011 at the Arbcom case pages, it might have been nice if someone had, you know, answered.  I was not aware that evidence in my own defense could have been presented in unlimited quantities at the evidence talk page (I thought all evidence was subject to the same 500-word limit, and it sounds pretty ridiculous to have a limit that can be exceeded at will).  In any event, the evidence presented against me by MastCell was certainly over his 500-word limit, and it was on the Evidence page rather than the talk page.  I responded to NYB above, regarding how I would edit the articles if allowed to, plus you can look at my history.  But I do think that the bogus nature of the proceedings in 2011 is relevant to whether the remedy imposed was ever necessary.  The BS accusation that MastCell makes below is just like the BS accusation he made in 2011.  At some point, you have to wonder who you're associating with by editing at Wikipedia.  You guys and gals have fun. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:32, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @Seraphimblade, heaven forbid that ArbCom should even slightly frown at someone who goes around falsely accusing me of labelling someone as a Nazi sympathizer. That is the most outrageous accusation I've faced yet at Wikipedia, but I guess it's all background noise for you guys.  Yes, I combat crap like that.  And you combat me. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

@Malke 2010 and Writegeist, thanks for chiming in, I'm grateful that you've watchlisted this page. Arbitrators, I apologize for getting overtly angry about MastCell's accusation, which seems like the latest in an endless string from him. Shrinks say you shouldn't bottle up your feelings, but maybe it's best to do so when dealing with your committee.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @NYB, after protesting violation of word limits with no response, I did finally try to defend myself at the proposed decision talk page without presenting any evidence (because I was not given permission to do so), and that occurred after eleven arbitrators had already voted. I still have not been offered any opportunity to present evidence in my defense, and in fact have been criticized here at this page for "re-litigating" even though I have not presented any evidence at this page about the accusations back then.  You have no idea what evidence I would present in my own defense.  Moreover, I find your assertion that I misrepresented a quote (by not realizing it had been changed in a newer edition of the book) to be just as inappropriate as your deafening silence in the face of an accusation here at this talk page that I called anyone a Nazi sympathizer.  In my life, I have never seen such baseless, frivolous accusations against anyone.  Even if you agree with what happened in 2011, you really think that warrants a lifetime topic ban?  Sheesh.  MastCell referred back in 2011 to the image I linked above (he did so immediately after he obtained the topic-ban against me), and he refers to it again in his comment below.  I therefore assume that this is mainly a content dispute, and that the other accusations are basically window-dressing, which explains why no one was ever interested in evaluating them per proper procedures.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @NYB, you folks are never going to accept evidence from me in my own defense, and you are never going to strike accusations presented in violation of your own rules. There is only one editor at this page who has made scurrilous bad faith accusations worthy of a site ban, but you folks have chosen to be most gracious toward that editor, and most unfair to me.  Hey, it's your website, so you can do what suits you.  Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Alrighty then, I withdraw this request. The topic-ban is now for life, because I have no intention of ever coming back here. The project is worse off for ArbCom's toleration of, and apparent reliance upon, malicious and hateful accusations. It is worse off for picking and choosing which policies and rules to enforce and against whom. Anyway, it's been interesting. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell
Brad, you asked what Anythingyouwant would do differently if his sanction is lifted. His statement boils down to one word: nothing. He's still re-litigating the ArbCom abortion case, not to mention his push to include fetal images in the abortion article which began more than 7 years ago. His recent editing in other controversial areas doesn't inspire confidence; while he was not sanctioned in the gun control case, he didn't exactly cover himself in glory either, falsely accusing one case participant of being a Nazi apologist and nearly challenging another to a duel. What basis is there for lifting this sanction? MastCell Talk 03:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Writegeist
Re. comments by Anythingyouwant and AGK on the permissible length of evidence. The instruction at the Evidence page is clear: ''Keep your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely.'' As Anythingyouwant rightly says, he complied with the instruction and his accusers didn't. (And was the rule-breaking evidence from his accusers refactored or removed?) Further, Anythingyouywant says he requested equal leeway and it was not granted. I.e. his disadvantage was not only known, it was actually enforced. So it concerns me to see AGK discount a cornerstone of Anything's submission with "named parties have a 1000 word limit on their evidence (not 500 words as claimed)." If AGK is presenting fiction as fact, I trust AGK will now strike the comments. Otherwise, I await AGK's supporting evidence. There's a strong whiff of kangaroo about an arbitration proceeding that's weighted against the accused by enforcing one written rule for the accused and another, unwritten and contradictory, for the accusers. Writegeist (talk) 01:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * For the record, hereby noting Newyorkbrad's prejudicially ambiguous misrepresentation—"[Anythingyouwant] owned the 1979 edition and didn't believe the definition in question had changed in any later edition" (my emphasis)—of Anythingyouwant's assertion at NYB's talk page  that he was "unaware that any later edition might have changed the definition in question" (my emphasis), which of course is very different, as any fule kno.  Noting also that NYB omits mention of Anything's reminder to NYB that when corrected he welcomed the correction and acted on it. Noting also that NYB's comments, and other committee members' apparent collective deafness to significant issues here, may well be viewed as part of a pattern first seen at the Evidence page and now again here (not least in AGK's apparently deceptive assertion referenced above, which AGK still allows to stand despite my request to strike it or support it with evidence): a pattern of impropriety that put Anythingyouwant at a disadvantage and thereby substantially underpinned the sanction and its continuation.  Writegeist (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * All moot now, as I see Anythingyouwant has just withdrawn his request. Writegeist (talk) 23:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Malke 2010
Agree with Writegeist. And I can see why Anythingyouwant is feeling so frustrated. He's not being heard. The accusers should have had any of their evidence over the limit removed as would have been done to anyone else. Anythingyouwant kept to the limit and clearly pointed out where the others had not, yet nothing was done. That would make anyone angry and certainly leave them with a terrible frustrated sense that they'd not been given ample opportunity to defend themselves.

As for the diffs by MastCell, I don't see anything there that the other side wasn't doing. He wasn't topic banned from Gun control for a reason. I think that shows right there he's capable of editing the Abortion article again. As for any concern over his wanting to put photos into the article, he's stated he'd only do that with consensus. He doesn't seem to be saying he'd do as he pleased. There are many articles on Wikipedia with necessary photos that don't suit everyone including Anencephaly. An RfC on the question would easily resolve any issue.

I know you're all very busy with these cases and it's sometimes easier to just discount an editor when he gets angry, but as I'm sure you realize, if you ruled against everyone who got angry on Wikipedia we'd not have any editors. I think this is worth putting a kettle on and having a second look.Malke 2010 (talk) 03:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Collect
Where a process has been used in an unequal manner, the claim that no change would have occurred had the process been handled equally - is weak. The argument that a person who raises this argument is ipso facto going to be found wrong is weaker. And the argument that the complainant was wrong about the 500 word limit is weakest yet. I have no idea on whether the sanction ought to be modified, all I know is the arguments made against it fail to convince me otherwise. Collect (talk) 14:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Considering. Question for Anythingyouwant: If this request is granted, what, if anything, would you like to edit that you can't as of now, and how, if at all, would you edit it differently from how you did previously? Note to newer arbitrators: see also Requests for arbitration/Ferrylodge (2007 case involving same editor under prior username). Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * When we voted on this case in 2011, although I joined the finding of fact, I expressed discomfort with one or two of the specific diffs cited. In retrospect, I might have pressed harder that those diffs not be included. I also regret if there was any miscommunication at the time about the word limit (I've never supported strict enforcement of the word limit that interferes with a party's responding to allegations), but Anythingyouwant did respond to the allegations about sourcing and policy-page-editing to some extent on the proposed decision talkpage, which the arbitrators would have seen. Most important, I don't believe that even if the disputed findings had been omitted, the ultimate remedy would have been any different. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:25, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Anythingyouwant, I haven't endorsed the misrepresentation finding here. To the contrary, although my memory is not perfect, I believe the diff describing the "misrepresentation of sources" is the specific one I found troubling at the time and would not have included in the decision. I understand now, and understood at the time, your argument in opposition to this finding, which is that you were unaware when you cited the 1979 edition of Black's Law Dictionary that there were later editions (the dictionary has actually been completely rewritten by Bryan Garner over the past few editions, see here) and that the citation from the later edition was actually to an example quotation in Black's rather than the definition itself. In terms of your request to lift the topic restriction, I personally might have been open to some relaxation (though not a complete lifting), but it's a moot point given my colleagues' comments below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Per discussion on my talkpage, I withdraw "you were unaware ... that there were later editions" and substitute "owned the 1979 edition and didn't believe the definition in question had changed in any later edition." Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline. Somehow I get the feeling that lifting this sanction would not lead to an improvement of the editing environment in the relevant topic area. As a side note, since you are fresh on our minds, I'll also add that it's probably a good idea if you choose to voluntarily stay away from contentious articles for a while... Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:37, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline, I don't see any persuasive argument for lifting this remedy at this time. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 09:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Unusually, this request is made on the grounds that there were procedural improprieties in the original case, and specifically that the complainant had insufficient space in which to respond to evidence against him. While I am sympathetic to the pressures of being accused from all sides, I reject these grounds because: (A) named parties have a 1000 word limit on their evidence (not 500 words as claimed); (B) rebuttals to evidence can be made on the Evidence talk page; and (C) none of this is relevant to whether the remedy imposed is still necessary. Decline. AGK  [•] 11:16, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline A request like this needs to present a compelling case that if the sanction were lifted the user would be able to provide positive contributions in the areas they are currently not allowed to edit in. This request does exactly the opposite. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline. T. Canens (talk) 18:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In addition to the history here, the combative attitude shown here does not give me any confidence that allowing Anythingyouwant back into a highly charged topic area is a wise idea. Decline. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:44, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline per Salvio. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Clarification request: Gun control (Gaijin42) (May 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Lightbreather (talk) at 15:32, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gun_control

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

Gaijin42 and Scalhotrod notified here and here.

Statement by Lightbreather
Yesterday, Scalhotrod removed a "See also" link three times from the Gun politics in the U.S. article, as documented here:, (scroll down), and. Rather than then make a fourth revert, he unilaterally moved/renamed the article, as documented here: (I reverted it and asked him to talk about it first, but he moved/renamed it again.)

Within hours of these edits, this discussion was posted on Scal's talk page by Gaijin42. I don't know what the Wiki-term is for this, but it seems like coaching to me. It's not specifically about gun control, but it's related to material Scal had been warring with me over off-and-on for five days. Is this kind of behavior OK?


 * @Beeblebrox @Seraphimblade @Salvio_giuliano et al. - I took this off my watch list earlier but just now realized that Scalhotrod has started making comments about my behavior here. Should I be responding to these? Because, of course, there are at least two sides to every story and I will defend myself if this is the place to do it. Else, could you ask him to please stop commenting about my behavior in inappropriate places? I'd honestly prefer that he start something specifically about me if he has a beef with me and my edits in general. Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 21:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Also, I third Salvio's and Andy's suggestions to reconsider Gaijin's ban. Lightbreather (talk) 21:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I asked Scal if he would redact his accusations about me, and his answer makes me wonder 1. Is it poor form to make such a request? and 2. Is it OK to redact something one says in an ArbCom discussion?


 * Also, FWIW, I'm noticing more IP edits on gun-control related pages in recent days - especially today. Lightbreather (talk) 22:53, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Gaijin42
I provided a direct quote to a policy/guideline. Something I do for many users, including Lightbreather, for which she has specifically thanked me for. including her mentioning my helping her with policy multiple times during the ArbCom case. In this case, I did not edit any page or talk page of gun control, and did not discus any edits, arguments, or editors involved.

I had planned on asking for a clarification of the topic ban myself, but was going to wait for things to calm down first User:Gaijin42/GunControlArbClarification Gaijin42 (talk) 16:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Gaijin asked for the following to be copied to this page:
 * "I asked for clarification of the ban just above. That request had a specific reference to the SYG article. The edits were not "boundary testing". They were made in good faith that either the ban did not apply (because SYG is not a law that in any way addresses "governmental regulation of firearm ownership"), or that if it did WP:BANEX would apply as the content removed was both a copyvio  and a BLP violation (WP:BLPCRIME, WP:BLPNAME, WP:BLPCRIME) to  if the scope of the ban is anything related to guns, including second or third order effects, please clarify the scope for me, like I have asked for multiple times. A ban on "guns" is much broader than "gun control" and if that is the way it is interpreted, I am particularly concerned that the "people and organizations associated with" bit is effectively a ban on all governments and politicians. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)"


 * (Iselilja (talk) 15:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC))

Statement by
(edit conflict with above)

I found the move frustrating, because it was clearly the type of edit that people would like to discuss first. But there was no discussion and it seemed to be a somewhat heated move that was directly in response. I admit my knee jerk reaction was to move the article back and start a discussion but I found I lack privileges to move over redirects. In hind sight that probably saved me from a heated edit. But the unlevel playing field also adds to the frustration. But I too find the coaching (or appearance thereof) concerning. Thenub314 (talk) 16:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Malke 2010
Agree completely with Beeblebrox's comment. , a lot of admins came to your defense and asked that you not be site-banned. I also supported you. It's disappointing that you are persisting with this. My best advice is for you to take everything associated with this topic off your watchlist. Find some other topic area on Wikipedia and start improving that area. Getting involved with something else will make a difference.

Statement by
The following edits were made after five arbiters here advised the editor not to test the limits their topic ban, I am at a loss to understand how the editor could possibly think that editing the Stand-your-ground law article would not be a gross violation of their topic ban. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 00:40, 8 May 2014
 * 00:41, 8 May 2014
 * 00:43, 8 May 2014

Statement by Callanecc
I have blocked Gaijin42 for two days for breaching the topic ban with these edits which blatantly relate to the interaction of gun control and the stand-your-ground law. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:25, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

After discussing it further with Gaijin42 on their talk page (which is worthwhile reading for the arbs as it explains Gaijin42's confusion), just clarifying that the block was based on the first edit to stand-your-ground law. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by AndyTheGrump
I note that most of the comments in the 'Arbitrator views and discussion' section pre-date the above statement by Callanecc concerning a further clear violation of the topic ban. Accordingly, I ask that those ArbCom members who have not yet done so reconsider their position, in the light of this evidence. It seems to me self-evident that #Gaijin42 is unwilling to comply with the topic ban (the edit being clearly within "the social, historical and political context of [firearms] regulation") and accordingly must face the sanctions that were made clear to him when it was imposed - namely, that he be indefinitely site-banned from the English Language Wikipedia. His assertion that he was asking for the scope of the topic ban to be clarified prior to making the edit can hardly justify his actions - if he didn't understand the scope, the onus was clearly on him to get clarification first, not to make an edit, in the hope that it was out-of-scope. This was not the action of a person acting in good faith. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * @Scalhotrod: "tangentially gun related as best"? Really? The edit in question involved the word "shot" five times, along with "shooting", "bullet wounds", ""threatened... with a gun" and ""licensed to carry a gun". That doesn't look 'tangential' to me. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:39, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * @Scalhotrod: I have no idea what you are trying to prove by linking diffs to Gaijin's edits. I have clearly already seen them, since I have pointed out the gun-related content in my above post.


 * Regarding WP:BANEX, I could see the merit in Gaijin's claim that WP:BLP was being violated - but that wasn't what he said in the edit summary. Instead he made vague statements about 'vandalism' (which is clearly not relevant if one takes Wikipedia's understanding of the term) or a 'hoax'. Given that he knew that any gun-related editing was going to be contentious until the scope of the topic ban was clarified, the onus was surely on him to make it entirely clear that he was citing WP:BANEX to justify his edit. It should also be noted that Gaijin made further edits to the article, where WP:BLP was irrelevant - in an article that discusses firearms, and laws relating to their legitimate use. An article which Gaijin had explicitly mentioned in his request for clarification over the scope of the topic ban: as he himself wrote, the subject is 'often associated with gun rights/gun control, so may be covered by the "social context" clause'.  Common sense says that having asked for clarification, and having explained why he thought that the article might be in scope, to carry on editing it anyway might result in sanctions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by
I have several comments to make about this issue. First, this "clarification request" is in my opinion the result of WP:Wikihounding by User Lightbreather as indicated by her comment here. Second, I personally fail to see how an article related to self-defense is anything but tangentially gun related as best. The last way I would characterize Gaijin's actual edits to this article as a "gross violation" of his topic ban (see list above). I disagree with the Andy's extremely broad application of the banned subject. The article in question is far more about legal and civil rights issues than "guns". Gaijin has asked repeatedly for this exact clarification. Third, the accuser (Lightbreather) in this case has begun to openly allude to her bias or viewpoint towards gun related articles and the associated editors here and here. In the absence of the topic blocked editors, this User gone on what I would describe as a "gun related article binge" that is leading myself and others to question the neutrality of the edits. This has been observed by one User here along with an outright accusation of WP:OWNERSHIP activity here. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * @AndyTheGrump, reply


 * 00:40, 8 May 2014, edit summary "unsourced, possibly vandalism/hoax additions", removal of a completely unsourced section titled "Questionable cases" that appears to be copyright vio content from here
 * 00:41, 8 May 2014, edit summary "citation needed", tag added, nothing to do with "guns" in the content
 * 00:43, 8 May 2014, edit summary "already discussed in first sentence of this paragraph. This statistic is limited to one study in florida, not represented correctly", again - nothing to do with guns

So if I understand this process correctly, the offense comes down to this edit:
 * 00:40, 8 May 2014

...which initially broke the topic ban and subsequent edits were just "fuel for the fire". The evaluation of the offense is because more often than not, the occurrence or application of a self-defense law like Stand Your Ground (I assume attributed to the article sources) involves a firearm and that is why the block was assigned. Is this a fair and accurate assessment?

I'm not trying to be flippant and please do not read any sarcastic tone into my comment and question. I would like to earn Admin status someday and I sincerely wish to understand how these proceedings function. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 18:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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


 * Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:25, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * It is obvious front he way that Gaijin's staement on the talk page was framed that he was aware he was skirting the edges of the TBAN. This is unfortunately all too common in the first weeks of such a ban and our reply in the first instance is generally to inform the user that if we see further testing of the limits of the ban it may become a siteban. Gaijin's cute little explanation here is as transparent as the ham-handed phrasing of the original post.
 * Gaijin, you are topic banned from this area. What this means is that the committee has determined that the project would be better off without your involvement in this one area, but that you are valued as an editor otherwise. So, I strongly suggest you simply take any page even remotely related to gun control off your watchlist and just leave it alone. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:26, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sigh. You wanted clarification, I hope the block clarifies things for you. This is where the phrase "broadly construed" comes into play. I don't think any of us believe that you honestly had no inclination that "stand your ground" could reasonably be interpreted as relating to gun control. Here's a simple test you can apply in the future: If you find yourself wondering if an edit might violate your topic ban, assume it does and don't make the edit. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Essentially what Beeblebrox said. A topic ban means to stay entirely away from the area, not to stand on its sidelines and shout suggestions to other editors involved. It is clear that Gaijin42's message was posted in response to an ongoing debate in the area covered by the topic ban. If this type of behavior continues, I expect blocks at AE or further consideration here will be the result. Being banned from participation in the area does not mean to find clever ways to remain involved and pretend not to be, it means to stay well clear. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:47, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Salvio. "Stand your ground" is a legal regulation which in the vast majority of its invocations covers the use of a firearm. Many of the laws even mention various points about firearms specifically. It is, as such, clearly and unambiguously covered by the topic ban, yet Gaijin42 edited there right after being cautioned that further boundary testing would be met harshly. (I don't consider SYG to even be on the boundary, it fits the wording of the topic ban very closely indeed). I'm very strongly considering whether we need additional action here. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks like we're done here. I would reiterate that Gaijin42 should stay far away from the boundary of the sanction, or at very least ask about any questionable cases and wait for an answer before beginning to edit. Trying to nibble at the edges of a topic ban by finely parsing the language is not the idea of such a sanction, and it's why it's "broadly construed". Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with my learned colleagues. Gaijin, further instances of boundary testing will probably lead to sanctions. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe that a two-day block for Gaijin's most recent violation of his topic ban is much too lenient. The restriction in question was imposed as a last chance. In the week following the closing of the case, Gaijin first tested the boundaries of his sanctions, was warned in no uncertain terms that further instances of such conduct would not be tolerated and what did he do? Befire this request was even archived, he blatantly violated his topic ban again. In my opinion, a much harsher sanction is needed. Salvio Let's talk about it! 15:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The two-day block was lenient, but I think we should let AE handle any further problems. AGK  [•] 11:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed with all three above. Decline. AGK  [•] 11:20, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with my colleagues. T. Canens (talk) 18:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Reiterating the warning and suggestion to remove gun-related articles from your watchlist, and declining the request. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:20, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * No action needed. Re Salvio giuliano's point, your history is correct, but I don't think we need to do anything further, as much harsher sanctions will follow inevitably in the event of any further violations. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe this request can be closed and archived. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:56, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Fæ (May 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Fæ (talk) at 12:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * This restriction is not logged as an action resulting from the Arbcom case. It was added when I was unblocked as documented on my talk page.
 * A previous discussion in advance of this request was made here in January 2014.

The restrictions were stated as:
 * 1) topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed
 * 2) topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed

Statement by Fæ
I would like the committee to remove the restrictions. They are so broad that they remain blight major barrier to my return to productive work as a Wikipedian editor, my future employment as a Wikipedian in Residence, and ensure I cannot create proposals for, nor take a lead in, future Wikipedia projects.

Failing removal, replacing with a narrow and well-specified restriction that is relevant to the original complaint in 2011 (which never went to dispute resolution as it was resolved amicably with the other editor), would prove far less damaging, such as restricted from adding external links on BLP articles to sites featuring sexually graphic material, excluding external links to germane non-profit/charity archives with educational medical or political material, such as the Wellcome Digital Library, British Library or similar respected archive or museum. However even this seems excessive, when there are sufficient members of the Wikipedia community closely following my edits to ensure that any problematic link would be rapidly challenged and widely discussed for consensus.

The previous discussion confirmed that members of Arbcom are not of one mind on how to read the restrictions, leaving them interpreted as broadly as technically possible. This stops editing where there would be any way of interpreting the topic relating to sexuality, women's rights, or of LGBT cultural interest. Specific examples included:
 * Suffrage in Britain.
 * Ancient history connected to gender or sexuality. I have created Assyrian statue (BM 124963) only after reviewing it specifically with Arbcom.
 * Women in Science edit-a-thons that touch on sexuality, for example my article on Professor Susan Lea, created before realizing her speciality is sexual assault.
 * LGBT cultural initiatives within the Wikimedia LGBT programme.

Specific projects that these restrictions have made impossible, damaging content improvement for Wikipedia:
 * Educational material to support Wiki Loves Pride 2014. Of the 100,000 images that I have been working with the Wellcome to make available (see demonstration upload set), a significant number relate to AIDS education and ACTUP posters, as well as more general LGBT related historic material. I am free to support these on Commons, but unable to help on Wikipedia.
 * My proposal with an LGBT archive was withdrawn due to these restrictions. I was hoping to start this project back in February (diversity awareness month).
 * I have not applied for Wikipedian in Residence positions in 2014.

In January it was suggested that I create new BLPs to demonstrate my competence (I improved several hundred before the Arbcom case). I have created the following articles in the last couple of months, mostly on living women: Pat Thane
 * Biographies

Emily Simonoff

Leone Ridsdale

Amanda Ramirez

Barbara Maughan

Colin Skipp

Hilary Little

Cathryn Lewis

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Veena Kumari

Elizabeth Kuipers

Rachel Jenkins

Khalida Ismail

Myra Hunter

‎Patricia Howlin

‎Louise Howard (psychiatrist)

‎Laura H. Goldstein

‎Philippa Garety

‎Rosalie Ferner

‎Anne Farmer

‎Judith Dunn

‎Essi Viding

‎Trudie Chalder

‎Sarah Byford

‎Angelica Ronald

Margaret Stefana Drower
 * Historical biographies

Elinor Wight Gardner

Helen Elizabeth Nash

Two of these, along with my photograph, were featured on Signpost as part of promoting Wikipedia's improvement during Women's History Month.

I believe the broad restriction was partly in place out of concern for my welfare. My interactions on controversial LGBT topics, LGBT safety rating for Wikimania bids and 2014033110012549, show that I can handle difficult discussion on LGBT topics and BLPs without inflaming debate.


 * I am sorry that you read my request so negatively. I have removed the word "blight", which I meant in a technical sense (I am used to the word being used in a legal context), this may have set the negative tone you were reading into my statement. I am presenting the relevant impact the restriction is having, which includes employment prospects. My intent is not "martyrdom", but to ignore the facts would seem odd, particularly if a concern of the committee was to place restrictions as a means to protect me, or to protect Wikipedia from me. --Fæ (talk) 08:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Responses to questions:
 * 1. This is Arbcom's call, I have no issue with a gradual approach if they feel it is helpful.
 * 2. First choice would be LGBT biographies and cultural images so I can support Wiki Loves Pride 2014 next month and may be able to renegotiate the LGBT archives proposal I had to withdraw. The contested site back in 2011 was part of a legal case, adding a link to that website without a community consensus was a serious error in judgement. I have learned a lot about how to interpret policies both here and on other projects with regard to respect and dignity of the subject in the years since then. That case is quite distinct in my mind to the projects I have mentioned above where I can support Wikimedia with relevant illustrative historic images from respected sources, or images from public events illustrating contemporary LGBT culture.
 * 3. I suggested a refined form of words above, though I wonder if rather than spending time debating a technical form of words better to define a restriction, a probationary period for BLP editing and images relating to "sexuality" would be pragmatic, perhaps running a log of articles as evidence of review during probation in preparation of restrictions being removed.
 * and all Arbcom members that have found my mention of future paid projects offensive. I apologise for mentioning this in my statement. It is completely irrelevant to this request and I have struck it. It was never my intention for this to be read as a criticism of the Committee. I understand how this was read as an attempt at manipulation of the Committee or a way to make a martyr out of myself. I hope the Committee can now ignore it. --Fæ (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In the light of views for keeping a core restriction and gradual relaxation, I would like to suggest a simple amendment to relax the topic ban to introducing sexually graphic images or adding new information about living people's sex lives or sexual identity to articles unless there is an existing consensus to do so. This would enable expansion or creation of LGBT related articles and BLPs, including adding portraits or images such as the Wellcome Library's posters, historic images such as my restoration of an 1869 Park and Boulton photograph or cultural illustrative photographs as part of the forthcoming Wiki Loves Pride. As a good practice, I intend to stick to 1RR for both BLPs and topics related to sexuality. After six months, I would hope to appeal this remaining restriction for further amendment or removal. --Fæ (talk) 23:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Could you please provide evidence to support your claim that I attempted "to suborn the committee through [my] position as chair of the UK Wikimedia chapter". Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry for spelling this out, "suborn" can be read as an allegation of an unlawful act between two or more parties, and if proven may lead to people losing their jobs or prosecution. Unless you have evidence that myself and others engaged in this act, please remove the allegation as statements like this tend to get re-cycled later as factoids, as has been my experience with the UK press. --Fæ (talk) 09:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your amendment. I firmly refute the assertion that I "attempt[ed] to subvert the committee through [my] position as chair of the UK Wikimedia chapter". If you have evidence to the contrary, please put it forward either here, or to the Wikimedia UK charity's board of trustees for investigation. BLPTALK applies to assertions about my life, as it does to any other living person. Please consider removing allegations where you have no verifiable evidence to support them, they do not help resolve the issue at hand. --Fæ (talk) 12:13, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for discussing a motion. I may be wrong, but it may be worth clarifying that the issue was more about sexual images rather than images relating to gender identity, and that images such as my restoration of Park and Boulton are not sexual, but might be suitable for me to add to articles if considered to be about gender identity. It would be helpful if Rexx's suggestion were picked up, so that I were able to provide evidence at my next appeal of how my contributions to the encyclopaedia demonstrated the behaviour you require of me in order to remove the topic ban, similar to my list of BLP creations included in my statement, as was suggested in the January discussion. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:04, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by AGK
Fae's statement implies that the committee decision is affecting his real-life employment. This does not mean the ban was unjustified, and I am not impressed he would claim otherwise (or by the tone of his statement in general). As this subtextual martyrdom is the same sort of conduct that led to Fae's ban in the first place, I question whether he has reformed. AGK [•] 07:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf
The Committee is explicitly required to act in the best interests of the English Wikipedia - it is not in their remit to consider how their decisions may or may not affect someone's personal life. In my opinion, this amendment request should succeed or fail solely on the basis of whether the Committee believes that removing or relaxing Fæ's restrictions will be a good or bad thing for the Encyclopaedia. Whichever they decide though, it is important that the reasoning is explained so that all parties may understand why that decision was reached. Thryduulf (talk) 18:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Given that at this point a complete removal of your restrictions seems unlikely but a partial relaxation has not been ruled out, it might be helpful if you could offer some thoughts around the following questions:

I guess input from the Committee other interested people about questions 2 and 3 might be useful to. Thryduulf (talk) 08:47, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) If you were offered a partial relaxation, would you accept one (depending on the exact terms) or would you reject it in favour of an all-or-nothing approach?
 * 2) If you do want a partial relaxation, is there one area you'd prefer to see relaxed first?
 * 3) Again only relevant if you do want a partial relaxation, but if the partial relaxation doesn't take the form of narrowing the scope, is there any looser but still realistic and practical form of restriction that you would be happy with and that you think would allow you to demonstrate to the committee that you are ready to return to full editing?

Partly per Seraphimblade, I don't think that this is very well worded motion as it is not easy to interpret. I think it would be clearer to replace the second restriction, "topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed", with something like
 * "topic banned from images relating to sexuality post 1000 AD, broadly construed"; or
 * "topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed, except where the image and any surrounding context relates entirely to pre-1000 AD"

(I realise that these options differ in whether the single year 1000 AD is allowed or not allowed, but unless Fæ indicates otherwise I highly doubt this will be significant). Thryduulf (talk) 07:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by RexxS
The question that ArbCom needs to address is how they are to manage restrictions on editors. If the intention is that certain editors are to carry restrictions forever, then be honest and say so. It is cruel to offer false hope and the editor affected at least can make a decision on whether they wish to continue editing at all under those restrictions or whether they will channel their energies into something else.

On the other hand, if Arbcom believes that no-one is irredeemable, then it would make sense to encourage whatever processes of rehabilitation are considered suitable. For infinitely banned users we have the standard offer, but I am unaware of any similar guidance for indefinitely restricted users. Were I in your position, I would be looking for clearly defined milestones that a user could aim toward in order to show that they no longer need restrictions to be able to edit productively and without undue conflict. If you are serious about bringing editors back into 'normal' editing, then you ought to be marking out timescales and expectations for targets that restricted editors could achieve to demonstrate their progress. Simply leaving them without any direction and having to guess how to demonstrate their progress is just not good enough. If that's too much work for ArbCom - and heaven knows your workload is heavy enough - then find some reliable way of delegating the tutoring of restricted editors back into full editorship. --RexxS (talk) 19:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand ArbCom's desire to ensure that our BLPs are as free from problems as possible. I would therefore suggest in this case that someone - an ArbCom member, a clerk, or an uninvolved admin - assemble a collection of diffs of problematic BLP editing by Fae and enter into a dialogue with him on how he would avoid such problems in the future. That should give you a lead on what he must do to demonstrate that he has moved forward. Obviously, the more diffs he is given to address, the more time and effort he'll need to undertake in order to illustrate his progress. That would at least be a step forward in clearly defining the problems that need to be solved. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Question by Cla68
Has Fae ever fully disclosed every single one of his sock accounts to the Committee as he was required to do? If so, please tell us that he has so the community can let that matter drop. Cla68 (talk) 01:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Worm that Turned, acknowledged as resolved. Thank you. Cla68 (talk) 12:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Wnt
The text of the original decision, with which I strongly disagreed, nonetheless finds only that "Fæ has added poor quality material to biographies of living people and, on one occasion, added a highly inappropriate link." So far as I understand, the link referred to is one which related a film "Superhead" to the person who comes up if you search that term on Google. I have to ask: why is such an anemic finding as this used to place Fae in what sounds like a very special category of people who are viewed as unrehabilitable? The repeated use of the term "at the moment" below seems out of place for a two year old case. How many years is does a moment last? Also, Arbcom has failed to explain how any editor is supposed to know when WP:WELLKNOWN does not really apply to information which is well known. So far as I know, no one has actually written any policy against providing information about porn stars, yet the clear lesson here is that Wikipedia is not a trustworthy competitor to Google on this sort of information.

The message I infer from this is that ArbCom believes it has to take a realistic view toward political issues, which includes such necessities as ensuring that articles about famous people don't include unpleasant information about them. Truth must take a backseat to power, and a part of that is that it is essential never to say it openly. Nonetheless, even assuming this unalterable reality, it's not clear why Fae has to take the brunt of it. And is there any reason why ArbCom would need to restrict Fae's editing about academic sexuality? Surely the prohibition could be limited to BLPs of sexual performers, while permitting him to do good work with BLPs of researchers doing sexuality studies or people advocating on LGBT issues, etc., without preventing anyone from keeping their unmentionables unmentioned.

Wikipedia's treatment of one of its best admins and prolific editors, which ignored and worked hand in glove with a cyberbullying campaign off-site, is appalling. Even so, it doesn't matter that much. Wikipedia remains firmly on a downward course in editing and readership and I fear the end may not be that far off. I hope that Fae will find a way to get involved in a successor prepared to take up the cause after Wikipedia's final foundering. Wnt (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't believe for a moment that Fae has "proved that he cannot be trusted". There was a range of opinion about his edits, with many of us finding them reasonable enough - more to the point, there was never any situation where he was given a chance to show he could "improve"; all the offending edits are ancient history from before any decision was made.  And I think it's really offensive to say there was no upside to Fae's contributions, when he has contributed a torrent of great images and content edits to match, including those of sexual BLP related topics. Wnt (talk) 19:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I see no particular risk from Fae editing, but I do see a risk that you could lose what you admit is a very good editor, because either (a) with opponents closely watching him, he gets fouled up on some trivial technicality, or because (b) after seeing the totality of his contributions treated as if they have zero value, and looking at a future where he will apparently never be treated as the equal of a teenager logging in after school, and working here yields nothing but attacks and humiliation, he simply gets disgusted and leaves. I know many who opposed him would cheer that day as a victory but I can assure you it is not a victory for Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I see a need for greater clarity on the text caption issue. For example, suppose that Fae wants to add an image of a Roman mosaic to an article with the caption (and perhaps some accompanying text in the article) that it was unearthed in 1974 on an expedition by A___, carefully restored by B___, placed in the C___ Museum of Roman History, where curator D___ described its discovery as a "key milestone in our understanding of how Romans viewed sexual identity".  (Or it might plausibly be "irrumatio" at the end of that quote)  Of the living persons A___, B___, C___, and D___, which are Fae not allowed to mention?

Statement by Kurtis
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly distance myself from a statement I made in 2012 following ArbCom's decision to ban Fæ from editing Wikipedia. In retrospect, I would say that I found him to be very aggressive towards other users at times, and that he handled criticism rather poorly. But the parts where I said that I have "absolutely no confidence in Fæ's honour, or his integrity", and that he will "never regain even a modicum of the trust necessary to be welcomed back here"? I don't stand by those statements today at all. I suppose I was responding more out of emotion than anything, and was upset by his attempt to subvert the committee through requesting a WMF official to intercede (at least, that's how it was presented). However, looking back, I believe he was on a downward spiral at the time. We all go through hard times where we say things we really shouldn't have. It's also unfair to cast all of the blame on him; he was the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment, after all.

So the question is, should we consider relaxing the restrictions at this time? I think there needs to be a demonstrated understanding of what constitutes a reliable third-party source, and how important it is that the citations used in an article assert precisely what they are referencing. This threshold is obviously amplified for BLPs. If Fæ can show that he has learned from his past mistakes, then it would serve no real purpose to keep the topic ban in place. For now, I think it would be best if he took the time to develop a better track record of conscientious article writing, and then return here in October-November to submit a second appeal. Once he has shown a greater understanding of his past issues, I would support lifting the active sanctions against him. Kurtis (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * @Fæ &mdash; That was the consensus among members of the 2012 Arbitration Committee. I don't know the full situation, but it sounded like an attempt to use connections within the WMF to subvert the Arbitration case. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted what they had said. Kurtis (talk) 05:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * @Fæ &mdash; I've altered the text to avoid misinterpretations of any sort (similar to the revision made by Jclemens at the time). But I do have to reiterate what the Arbitration Committee has said, that the onus is on you to avoid sabotaging yourself and your career with what you do online. You've tied your employment to your activities across the Wikimedia community, which can have a broad range of consequences depending on which course of action you take. Kurtis (talk) 12:00, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see why I should be required to provide evidence or retract any part of my above statement. I'm not making allegations, I'm parroting what was discussed in the 2012 ArbCom case. I even linked to the specific subsection where it was brought up. I don't see how anything I've written constitutes a BLP violation. Kurtis (talk) 07:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten that sentence so it will no longer present Fæ as having abused a position of trust in his capacity as chair of a Wikimedia charity. I did not intend to slander him in any way, and I apologize if that's the impression I had given off. Kurtis (talk) 08:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've removed the stricken text and other relevant aspects of the above statement pursuant to a discussion at the BLP noticeboard. Kurtis (talk) 15:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite
There are 4.5m+ articles on Wikipedia. Fewer than 1% of those involve the restrictions that Fae is barred from, yet many of those are amongst the most controversial and prone to problematic content. Fae - via his current, and previous accounts - has previously proved that he cannot be trusted to edit BLPs in this area (nor, indeed, to deal with relevant images in those areas), so I don't see any reason for Wikipedia to expose itself (again) to possible problems with no upside whatsoever. Black Kite (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * . I didn't say there was no upside to Fae's editing per se (he is clearly a very good editor), merely that it would appear to be prudent to limit him to the 4,000,000+ articles that don't involve content with which there have previously been issues with his editing.  Personally I don't think it's worth the risk. Black Kite (talk) 21:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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


 * Changed to an amendment request as it is asking for a past decision to be changed. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Recuse. AGK  [•] 07:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * No. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm still considering this, but I will comment on RexxS's point. There are editors that I have come across since I have been on Arbcom that I would say should never have their restrictions relaxed, just as there are a small number of editors who I would be reluctant to unban under any situation, even OFFER. I will say the area I'm least keen on relaxing restrictions is on BLPs where there has been previous problematic editing. Now, I'm open to a relaxation, but not a removal at the moment. I will need to think about what relaxation would be appropriate - and would be interested in hearing from other committee members to see if one is even worth proposing. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 07:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I've had a little while to think about this and have a few ideas on a possible relaxation. However, I have been struggling with your request due to the way you've framed it. AGK may have used evocative language but his point is well taken - if the ban is affecting your future livelihood, then that is unfortunate but should not be relevant to the Arbcom's decisions. It should not be down to the Arbitration Committee to ensure your livelihood - if you insist on tying your income to Wikipedia, you make damn sure to follow the rules. Raising the issue of future employment appears to be an attempt at manipulating the committee, similar to the behaviour which landed you in the situation in the first place. On top of this, you've implied that you are restricted from areas that you don't appear to be. Suffrage, for example, is about gender, not sexuality - and if you cannot tell the difference between those terms, you should not be working in either area. LGBT cultural outreach should not require you to be editing the BLPs. If you are leading by example, there are many non-BLP LGBT articles. The Assyrian statue you checked with us that it was outside the scope of the restriction, we agreed. There wasn't confusion there, no Arbs suggested it was a problem.  per this, Fae needed to pass the committee a list of his accounts prior to being unbanned. I, for one, was satisfied with his disclosures and consider the matter resolved. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 12:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been struggling to come up with a relaxation that will actually allow further participation whilst at the same time keeping the protection in place. However, due to conversations we've had, such as this one, I'm no longer sure that a general "relaxation" is a good idea - I can see significant potential issues with allowing you to edit areas which cover human sexuality. What I will suggest though is a specific exemption - that of images regarding ancient sexuality. For clarity, I'd allow images relating to periods pre-1000AD, which I think is a very generous definition of ancient. I've posted a motion to that effect below. At present, I'm not willing to relax the BLP restriction, nor the image restriction that might directly affect BLPs. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 09:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Regarding RexxS's suggestion, if a committee member had the time to do that, I'm sure they would have volunteered, I wouldn't presume to tell a clerk or uninvolved admin to do so. I'm afraid to say that due to the voluntary nature of Wikipedia, people do what they want to do - if someone was interested in that role, I dare say they'd have made themselves known (and would be very busy... editor review is failing for this exact reason). <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 14:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That would fall under the BLP exemption, not the image exemption. Whether it is a violation of the BLP exemption would be based on the context of the situation, but given the scenario described I would personally have no issue with any of the people being mentioned. That said, the sentence could equally be written without the names of the people involved, and I would advise Fae to take care in how he writes such captions to keep in mind his restrictions - which I'm sure he would. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 06:42, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * If there were to be any relaxation, given that BLPs are involved and with the previous issues in the BLP area, it would have to be very, very gradual. I would be categorically opposed to a total removal of the ban, but might be willing to consider a narrow exemption for some particular purpose to gauge things, with an understanding that any problems will lead to that exemption being revoked. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:31, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Per the above comments, I do not think a wholesale removal of restrictions is what we want to do here but I might be persuaded to support a more gradual reduction on a trial basis. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:50, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Fully agree with Worm's statement above. Sorry Fae, the best interest of the project, not your paycheck, is  our bottom line. We already do the worst job here and we don't get a penny, so forgive my lack of compassion for your alleged inability to make money from your involvement with this volunteer-run non-profit organization. Now, if you want to drop the martyr act, show a little humility, and discuss ways in which your sanctions might be slowly eased back on a provisional basis, I am still open to that, but if you want to just appeal to our sympathy with your inability to get a  Wikipedian in residence job, well, that's your own problem and your own fault. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with the preceding comments. There is a core of restriction that should stay in place for now, but the boundaries may sweep too broadly. I have no interest at this stage in the issue raised by Cla68. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:15, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with Worm That Turned that "sexuality" is quite different from "gender." Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Worm That Turned's statements above, but I am not yet sure if I agree with some of my colleagues that the restrictions should be relaxed. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:22, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Recuse. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:43, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Motion (exemption regarding ancient sexuality)
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators, not counting 2 who are inactive and 2 who are recused, so 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Proposed:
 * Notwithstanding the existing restrictions on his editing, is permitted to edit regarding images of sexuality in ancient and medieval times, up to A.D. 1000. This permission may be withdrawn at any time by further motion of this Committee.


 * Support
 * Proposed. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 09:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Copyediting of anything I write for the committee to vote is always welcome, it's not my speciality. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 13:47, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support in principle, though we might want to do a bit of copyediting. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've made my proposed copyedits to the motion. Any arbitrator who disagrees with them may revert in whole or part to the original. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Support, but would prefer with the change I suggested below . Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:00, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In the hope that it is understood that this very slight easing of the current restrictions is a sort of probation, and if there are  any further issues in this area the pendulum will swing back in the other direction. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * My thoughts echo Beeblebrox's. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. NativeForeigner Talk 07:14, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose
 * Not because this particular exemption is highly troubling, but because IMHO allowing the thin end of a wedge has higher costs than benefits to the encyclopedia in this case. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Abstain


 * Comments by arbitrators
 * I'd be inclined to support this, but if we're going to allow the exemption, I would prefer to allow both images and text related to sexuality in ancient cultures. A literal interpretation of this motion wouldn't even allow a caption to be added to an image. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:56, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy with a change if you want to put it in, but at the moment Fae is under 2 editing restrictions - images relating to sexuality and BLPs relating to sexuality. If Fae was under a topic ban re: sexuality, I'd have put it in, but otherwise the change seems rather moot. <span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD; color:#000;'>Worm TT( talk ) 09:35, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You are correct, I misread. I don't think there's much chance of a BLP being at issue in that time frame. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Motion carried. Clerk to post and notify. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:46, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: Gun control (May 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Lightbreather (talk) at 00:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 10


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

N/A
 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request


 * Information about amendment request


 * Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gun_control: Purpose of Wikipedia; Making allegations against other editors; Battleground conduct; Seeking commpunity input.
 * Amendment request: Semi-protection of gun-control related articles to prevent edits by unregistered users.

Statement by Lightbreather
In the past week I have been attacked and harassed by two IP address users who have been blocked: and another one appears to be started up:
 * Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive840
 * Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive840.
 * User_talk:Lightbreather.

The purpose, I believe is to try to bait me and/or discourage me from editing. This could be a problem for other editors of gun-control related pages, too - pro-gun or gun-control. This could cut down on trips to admin boards. I've never requested an AR amendment before, and I am not working on my computer, so please forgive me if I mess it up. Lightbreather (talk) 00:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Semiprotection is one available discretionary sanction available for areas covered by DS. It would be my recommendation that such a request go through the standard arbitration enforcement process. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:32, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The only time I can recall the Arbitration Committee directing that articles be semiprotected (the Abortion case) involved years of problematic editing by IPs in that area. Absent something like that, protection requests should probably continue to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, whether at AE or RFPP or by admins directly monitoring the subject articles. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:29, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Decline. AGK  [•] 20:10, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * What Brad said. AE or RFPP can handle this, it doesn't require an amendment. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, AE. I think this is more or less resolved. NativeForeigner Talk 11:07, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Amendment request: COFS (June 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) at 08:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Case affected :


 * Clauses to which an amendment is requested
 * 1) Remedy 7


 * List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
 * (initiator)
 * I've left a message at Talk:Scientology as I can't think of any individual users this affects.


 * Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
 * Talk:Scientology


 * Information about amendment request


 * Vacate Remedy 7 as the topic area is also covered by discretionary sanctions from the.

Statement by Callanecc
The Scientology topic is currently covered by both article probation and discretionary sanctions which allow a much greater latitude to deal with disruptive behaviour. I'm requesting that the Committee vacate the article probation provision in preference to the discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by John Carter
I can see no real reason for the article to have redundant sanctions to the broader topic, and can't see any reason for the redundancy, with perhaps the one proviso that if for whatever reason the remaining sanctions get lifted, perhaps having the article probation restored or at least consideration of such restoration. John Carter (talk) 19:27, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

 * This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * Recuse Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * As a practical matter, the discretionary sanctions supersede the article probation. I'm not sure that any formal action is necessary, but will defer to the arbitrators who led the recent DS review and the related update/clean-up motion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:42, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * There should be no need for a separate article probation now that the area is under standard DS, and we should vacate it to avoid confusion. Proposing motion. T. Canens (talk) 16:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Intuitively I agre with Brad, but I'm fine with doing so. NativeForeigner Talk 02:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Question I should probably know the answer to: wasn't this situation handled in the wording of the relatively new DS motions? Why is this motion even needed? Isn't it kind of like proposing a motion that "policy will be followed"? Sure, it's hard to vote against, but I don't get the point. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:41, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Motion
Remedy 7 of the COFS arbitration case is vacated with immediate effect. Any extant enforcement actions taken under the remedy remain in force, and shall be treated as if they were imposed under standard discretionary sanctions authorized by remedy 4.1 of the Scientology case.


 * There are currently 11 active arbitrators for purposes of this motion, so a majority is 6.


 * Support:
 * T. Canens (talk) 16:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * NativeForeigner Talk 02:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * L Faraone  02:24, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Simple enough to do for housekeeping. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep,  Roger Davies  talk 09:33, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Beeblebrox (talk) 18:21, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I suppose it's quicker to just stop whining and support than ask questions, but this certainly seems unnecessary. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:41, 2 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose:


 * Abstain:


 * Comments:

Clarification request: Pseudoscience (June 2014)

 * Original discussion

Initiated by  ~Adjwilley (talk) at 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Case or decision affected:
 * Link to relevant decision Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience
 * Link to relevant decision Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience

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

Statement by Adjwilley
I recently stumbled across a dispute centered around Chiropractic, and became aware that the article and subject area are under discretionary sanctions under the Pseudoscience case. My question is: how does the pseudoscience case apply to alternative medicine generally? Where do alt-med (and chiropractic specifically) fall on the spectrum of "obvious pseudoscience", "generally considered pseduoscience", "questionable science", and "alternative theoretical formulations" that is outlined in the case? The case file doesn't seem to mention alternative medicine specifically, but apparently discretionary sanctions are being issued in the area, which is why I am asking for clarification. ~Adjwilley (talk) 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Reply to Kww, Enric Naval: I understand the reasons for Chiropractic specifically being covered; I want to understand the details, and how the pseudoscience case applies to other alt-med articles like Acupuncture which afaict is not sanctioned. For instance, can an administrator impose a topic ban or edit restriction under the discretionary sanctions clause of this case for all alternative medicine articles, or would such a topic ban only apply to articles that have the pseudoscience DS template on the talk page? And what is the criteria for adding the DS template to an article? I don't see a clear-cut answer to this, which is why I filed the request for clarification. ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:19, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval
Chiropractic is covered because it has has pseudoscientific elements. And it's doubly covered because the sanctions were expanded to cover fringe science, and chiropractic is fringe medicine (fringe medicine being a subset of fringe science). The arbitration case doesn't need to mention alternative medicine.

Sourced proof: --Enric Naval (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * (this source is already in the article!)
 * In Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (pages 226-227), the Florida State University tried to start a chiropractic course, and it was denounced as pseudoscience by many professors.... but not by all of them. Then it discusses several aspects of fringe medical practices that are labelled as pseudoscience, including chiropractic as one of those practices.

@Neuraxis. These two sources talk about the current state of chiropractic. They are not "used in a historical context". --Enric Naval (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

If a topic is reliably-sourced as being a Pseudoscience / fringe science, then it should be under discretionary sanctions. The Arbcom only needs to clarify that.

The rest are content disputes, using reliable sources to establish / deny the pseudoscience in each separate article. Arbcom shouldn't decide content disputes in a given article, unless the community has shown that it can't solve the matter. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:44, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Neuraxis

 * User:BullRangifer has twice deleted, my comment for a clarifiation request  and is now alleging I am edit warring over it!  .  This is hardly civil or any good faith.  It is again another smear tactic which mischaracterizes my comment which was not a straw man argument. Neuraxis (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Enric has decided to cherry pick a sentence, used in a historical context. This is a common tactic. However, it ignores the fundamental question: Are manual and manipulative therapy for MSK conditions pseudoscientific and fringe? This impacts chiropractic since it is the largest purveyor of manipulative services, but also impacts on osteopathic medicine, physical therapy who also use manipulation as a means of relieving MSK pain. So, the findings here apply equally to all health professions who use manipulative therapy as a clinical intervention for dealing with MSK pain. While I do agree that the non-musculoskeletal use of manipulative therapies isn't mainstream, given that its only 10% of practice this should not be disproportionately weighed against the fact that 90% of manipulative treatment is directly towards spinal/MSK issues. Given that the mainstream of the chiropractic profession has evolved with a common identity focusing on conservative spine care, the notion that chiropractic practice (and spinal manipulation by extension) is 100% pseudoscientific does not reflect the current reality. This ongoing discussion specifically discusses this very topic and is relevant here. Lastly, we need use a global focus and not just a US-centric POV.


 * Residency program for chiropractors in Veterans Affairs, and integration in VA in general.
 * National Institute of Health, viewpoint states "Most research on chiropractic has focused on spinal manipulation. Spinal manipulation appears to benefit some people with low-back pain and may also be helpful for headaches, neck pain, upper- and lower-extremity joint conditions, and whiplash-associated disorders." . This is a mainstream respected organization.  The WHO was clear too in this regard.
 * '''Whereas most chiropractic schools in the USA are in private colleges, most of the newer schools internationally are within the national university system (e.g. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK). In some of these programs, for example, at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and the University of Zurich in Switzerland, chiropractic and medical students take the same basic science courses together for three  years before entering separate programs for clinical training. .  Video proof
 * Surveys demonstrate that the primary reasons patients consult chiropractors are back pain (approximately 60%), other musculoskeletal pain such as pain in the neck, shoulder, extremities, and arthritic pain (20%) and headaches including migraine (10%). About 1 in 10 (10%) present with a wide variety of conditions caused or aggravated by neuromusculoskeletal disorders (e.g. pseudo angina, dysmennorhea, respiratory and digestive  dysfunctions, infant colic/irritable baby syndrome.).Practice demographics state that the majority (9/10) patients see chiropractors for spine/MSK conditions.
 * "These data support the theory that patients seek chiropractic care almost exclusively for musculoskeletal symptoms and that chiropractors and their patients share a similar belief system."
 * '''Back and neck pain are the specialties of chiropractic but many chiropractors treat ailments other than musculoskeletal issues . The source is Ernst, and the % of non-MSK issues being treated, as the 2013 status report shows is 10%.  This was also stated in an earlier study where the percentage was 10.3% [Nonmusculoskeletal complaints accounted for 10.3% of the chief complaints.]
 * This source, (also being used at the mainpage but this section isn't allowed to be inserted by skeptical editors  states "Chiropractic, the medical profession that specializes in manual therapy and especially spinal manipulation.  The same article also states that "Even to call chiropractic "alternative" is problematic; in many ways, it is distinctly mainstream.
 * Although chiropractors have many similarities to primary care providers, they are more similar to a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry
 * Spinal manipulative therapy gained recognition during the 1980’s by mainstream medicine, "As a result of this increased communication between the medical and chiropractic communities, chiropractors were offered and credentialed medical staff hospital privileges and began to co-manage patients with medical physicians" (Ibid.)
 * The current advent of the evidence-based medicine era, chiropractic scholars have generated evidence-based systematic reviews and practice guidelines with respect to the management of acute/chronic low back pain, thoracic pain, neck pain, headache,  radiography,    and upper/lower extremity conditions.    tendinopathy myofascial pain/trigger points, and non-musculoskeletal conditions. .  Collectively, these can be found here  which is an evience-based resource for chiropractic management.
 * Evidence-based chiropractic generates 234 hits on PubMed . This suggest that, in modern times, evidence-based chiropractic is not a myth, like critics suggest, but a reality.
 * There are several evidence-based textbooks of the topic of chiropractic published by mainstream medical publishers, , , , and several more by other professions who use MM. | MSK MM | Science and Practice of Manual Therapy | Chiropractic technique and principles | An Osteopathic Approach to Dx and Tx | Manipulative Therapy: Musculoskeletal Medicine


 * Beijing Declaration (2008) "“This congress represented a major milestone for chiropractic” says WFC president Dr. Papadopoulos. “Chiropractic was seen by WHO, government officials from many countries and delegates from other professions as the most developed profession internationally in the field of manual healthcare, and the Beijing Declaration called upon all countries to recognize and regulate CAM professionals such as doctors of chiropractic.”
 * Chiropractors holding unorthodox views may be identified based on response to specific beliefs that appear to align with unorthodox health practices. Despite continued concerns by mainstream medicine, only a minority of the profession has retained a perspective in contrast to current scientific paradigms. 
 * Pioneering of World Spine Care  which is brings together a multidisciplinary group of doctors and therapists to help treat spinal disorders in 3rd world countries and has such notable sponsors as Elon Musk of Tesla and endorsements from the WHO, North American Spine Society, and other leading spine care organizations. "SC is a multinational not-for-profit organization, bringing together the full spectrum of health care professionals involved in spinal health – medical physicians and specialists, surgeons, chiropractors, and physiotherapists. WSC is focused on providing evidence-based, culturally integrated prevention, assessment, and treatment of spinal disorders in the developing world. The flagship project involves developing and initial deployment of a universal model of care for spinal disorders, designed for practical application by front-line health care workers in developing nations worldwide.
 * 2013 WHO introduces World Spine Day, was directly related to the efforts of the chiropractic profession to draw awareness for spinal health disorders
 * Collectively this small collection of diffs shows that the primary focus of chiropractic care as it currently stands is primarily dedicated to management of spinal/MSK disorders. The outdated one cause one cure has been rejected by the profession 'the monocausal view of disease has been abandoned by the profession preferring a holistic view of joint dysfunction/subluxation that is viewed as theoretical construct in web of causation along with other determinants of health.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather a starting point to show evidence that scientific practice and research is not uncommon, but reflects the mainstream of the profession currently. Regards, Neuraxis (talk) 18:02, 8 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment to Enric Naval. No, it's not representing the current status.  It's describing the Hx, as the title implies.  Also, the issues at chiropractic at chiropractic are in are in dispute with no resolution.  The evidence suggests the currently, the majority (80%) are practicing under biomedical, scientific norms.  BR, QG and DJ are suggesting the opposite is true.  Hence, the need for clarification.   Do you have any rebuttals for the evidence I posted?  Neuraxis (talk) 00:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Kww, you simply seem not to understand. You're making a claim that chiropractic is nonsense but no one here, asides from Enric, with 2, has brought any sources. You're claiming it's pseudoscience through and through and even though I provide you with scientific research that currently shows an 80%/20% in favour of chiropractors practicing according to biomedical science orthodoxy, you're still claiming the opposite.  There's a difference between skepticism and cynicism and you're much more of the latter than the former.  Skeptics review their position in face of new evidence.  Cynics are just as dogmatic as those who are offer unconditional praise.  As this thread illustrates,  you're not listening when we ask you to stop ducking questions and stop distorting what the sources are actually saying.  Neuraxis (talk) 00:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bullrangifer, NYbrad, Kww, etc.  We do have a RS, that I linked above, that states clearly that Chiropractors holding unorthodox views may be identified based on response to specific beliefs that appear to align with unorthodox health practices. Despite continued concerns by mainstream medicine, only a minority of the profession has retained a perspective in contrast to current scientific paradigms.  .   Neuraxis (talk) 13:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Bullrangifer, you're not bringing anything new to the table. This is 2014 article, it is a RS and MEDRS compliant.   I am not trying to white-wash anything, despite your specious and repeated allegations (which hardly assumes good faith on your part).  So, I'm going to stick to what the sources say about the preponderance of scientific vs. unscientific beliefs and practices as is 'currently' known.  You should also read up on this too .  Also, it's not just the Canadians, the same findings were found in America and across the globe . Both concerns seem unlikely, however, given the consistency of the number of dissidents calculated in other investigations of chiropractic [3,22,36]..  So it's a global issue.  Neuraxis (talk) 16:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * John Carter, the conclusions aren't specific to Canada, as the article clearly stated in the conclusions. I've mentioned it here to you but it seems you may have missed my comment earlier today here.  Also, the comparison with psychoanalysis isn't really applicable, for there is no real research that demonstrates how PA works nor that it is clinically effective.  Remember, WP distinguishes b/w pseudoscience, junk science, questionable science and alternative theoretical formulations.  We need to be careful with which words we choose.  Neuraxis (talk) 22:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is the question I posed John Reading and reviewing research is part of my real-life job. The qualifying terms 'seems' is what all good researchers do.  That being said, it does not negate the generalizability.  You asserted that it's 'only' from Canada and the authors specifically cited other studies that this was not an outlier, but a common finding.  That was the purpose of my clarification.  Regarding the word perspective, it must be used in the the context of the paper.  Also, the word isn't ambiguous, it's definition is precise:  a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.'.  So, it's a synonym for POV.  What am I noticing at ArbCom is the majority of comments seem to be from users who have no expertise in research or methods and thus appraising the literature.  If ArbCom commentary does not require one to bring sources and facts and relies on opinions on the topic then the process is flawed. Even in this case, where the statement in the conclusions are so clear, the 'personal interpretation' of the editors are completely irrelevant.  If I am factually wrong about the process, then please tell me how I am misinformed.  I do not want to waste your time or mine.  If my tone is curt, I apologize in advance.  What I am noticing that true skepticism will revise opinions based on new facts and data.  Despite the multitude evidence of new facts that suggest that the majority of practice internationally is within scientific norms, there seems to be cynicism on the topic.   I really don't know what evidence you or anyone would require.   I am all ears (eyes!).
 * Reply to John: The source does not say 'respectability'. The studies that were quoted (which discusses the 'dissidents') were as earlier as 2003.  You can state that this study in fact 'reviewed' them.  So, the recentism argument doesn't really apply.   We agree that earlier areas and 'historically' that was the case.  And these, of course should be noted.  There is no distinction, between new or old, but it is clear that in 1895 medical physicians were using leeching therapy and in 1895 chiropractors were treating systemic conditions.  In 2014, the medical profession has evolved where leeching isn't a primary or common therapy and in 2014 the chiropractic profession has evovled where it has focused on neuromusculoskeletal disorders.   I don't see a distinction between old and new medicine, just 'eras' and   I think we were are disagreeing  on one key point: but neither does it make sense to call someting that apparently clearly was pseudoscience as science because it has subsequently become perhaps more scientific..  This is a false dichotomy analogy.  It is either 100% scientific or it is not.  That's not the case.  Do you realize that 'mainstream' or conventional medicine is not in fact completely scientific or evidence-based?  This may be a bit hard to grasp, but there is an excellent discussion here  where we discuss this topic precisely.  It, IMHO, is fundamental reading about understanding 'mainstream' vs. 'fringe' with respect to health care.  I would suggest this: scientific chiropractic is confined to NMSK diagnosis and treatment.  Outside those boundaries, all bets are off. Nonetheless, I  don't see this as 'all or none' but differentiating between the shades of grey.  I hope I've explained myself well.  I will post my own comment at ArbCom, you can post your reply, for transparency purposes.  Thanks for the collegial discussion thus far.  Neuraxis (talk) 01:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Brangifer is not talking about anything other than his personal opinion .  Despite what the source specifically says, that 80% of practicing chiropractors are practicing within scientific norms, a landslide majority, Brangifer insists through his own original research, that the reverse is true.  No amount of special pleading can change the results of the paper.   The mainstream of chiropractic is aligned with the mainstream of medicine.  The sources states that the unorthodox (aka fringe, pseudoscientific) is against mainstream medicine.  The criticism against the profession is aimed directly at the the specific faction, i.e. "straights".  We agree this faction is pseudoscientific.  The only disagreement we have are about the numbers.  The source stated 80% of chiropractors internationally are science-based.   Brangifer, put up a source that backs your claim that the straights are the majority or let it go. Neuraxis (talk) 03:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * John Carter I would appreciate it if you please do not misrepresent my intentions.  Your suggestions of attempting to overwhelm readers and attempting to restore a primary source aren't really assuming any good faith and my conduct is not in question here.  Rather than trying to find a middle ground I see your comment as reinforcing the polarization on the topic which doesn't move anything forward.  The accusation of attempting to rephrase things in a prejudicial manner is also not showing any good faith.  You are clearly wrong if you think I am going to be facing sanctions for my editing at chiropractic because there has been no substantial edits and the majority of work, so far, is spent on talk pages understanding the various POVs and coming to a compromise.  The fact that you're relying on a skeptical encyclopedia as the authoritative source is completely biased, it would be the same if there was a 'true believer' encyclopedia that I would be use to determining how 'scientific' a CAM practice was.   What you personally find relevant isn't the issue, it's what the sources say.  It seems no matter how many sources that are presented that demonstrates an evidence-based practice, this committee has really no intentions on reviewing any of the evidence instead relying on personal opinions and personal anecdotes.  So, to sum it up, this has nothing to with sanctions against me whatsoever, which is a red-herring.  I'm also disappointed in your lack of good faith; it's hard to have a true blue discussion when an editor thinks another one is trying to game them.   This has been rather illustrating how this process needs some serious modernization for casting the broad pseudoscience brush against all CAM is not only wrong in terms of the evidence and ethics, but outside of wikipedia, the situation is nowhere as being as dramatic and polarized.  When we starting ignoring the WHO, NIH, medical publishing houses, etc which do not state that chiropractic is pseudoscientific, then it appears that a schism has taken place.  So long as WP enables the cynical viewpoint to continuously dominate the on how things are defined and practiced, despite strong evidence to the contrary, you can expect the same problems to arise again and again as the root of the problem is not being addressed.  Regards Neuraxis (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * There seems to be some confusion occurring during these discussions. Second, as I stated in our discussion, I am all for transparency . You made some statement here that weren't factual regarding your interpretation, and I tried to clarify them with you.  I you are offended that I challenged your opinion, I do apologize.  You've told us of your interpretation, that I'm trying to sway you, try to use perjorative terms to get undue influence, etc.  I respectfully disagree, I never had any such intention.   I have no experience with this process and all of the technical formalities.  You are experienced in these matters, and I am a little confused as to what is actually happening here anymore.    In all honesty, I wonder why this committee isn't  a panel of health care professionals overseeing this matter.  I am presenting medical research and discussing medically related issues related to health care.  While I do respect that everyone is entitled to comment, I do note the lack of multi-disciplinary health professions that would help us discern the research and also counter with their own to make this more factually based.  One last point: The only documented misconduct regarding editing at chiropractic has been QuackGuru.  Despite after promising to improve his behaviour  and stop editing chiropractic  he continued to do so, he has 50% of the edits alone in 2014 to chiropractic, and even stated that he shaped the article from top to bottom [.  He has misled editors continuously about reforming his behaviour [ and continued to be disruptive   Despite asking him several times to engage in talk, there were repeated attempts of not listening, ,, , , ,  His chiropractic article [ has become unreadable , while he continues self-congratulates himself claiming the article is just peachy .   His absence here has been rather conspicuous.  [[User:Neuraxis|Neuraxis]] (talk) 01:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * In responding to John Carter's recent allegation that I am a SPA, the rules are rather clear on this Editing only within a single broad topic: When identifying single-purpose accounts, it is important to consider what counts as a diverse group of edits. For example, subjects like spiders, nutrition, baseball, and geometry are diversified topics within themselves. If a user only edits within a broad topic, this does not mean the user is an SPA.. Also, it's a red-herring to the topic, as it is not at all what the purpose of this ArbCom is about.  Lastly, I provided several diffs above regarding the evidence of who has been a repeated, documented disruptive editor and not a single peep.  Rather odd.   What exactly about my conduct,  are you concerned about and how does it compare with QuackGuru's?   Neuraxis (talk) 15:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

User:Newyorkbrad: How about we used alternative theoretical formulations? Neuraxis (talk) 17:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Kww
I don't even see why this is a question. Chiropractic practices are firmly rooted in pseudoscience. That some small subset of their treatments have beneficial effects doesn't mean that the foundation is solid, it's simply an an example of the "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" principle. The same reasoning applies to the various alternative medicines.

In a very real sense, these are more important topics than the more esoteric pseudosciences. No one is going to hurt themselves because they believe in cold fusion. They can hurt themselves by forgoing legitimate medical treatment in favour of quackery.&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Neuraxis's argument is no different than "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" supported with citations. Certainly manual manipulation of misaligned and inflamed joints can be helpful. That chiropractors promote nonsense like vertebral subluxation doesn't break their fingers and their manual manipulations remain effective despite the pseudoscience underlying the treatment method.&mdash;Kww(talk) 19:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * NYB:Absolutely. The area is rife with sockpuppeting, and beset by a few editors that remind me of Martinphi: ostensibly polite and reasonable, but unfailingly attempting to shift articles towards having a favorable view of nonsense. Acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, and chiropracty are the hot spots I'm aware of, but I'm sure that's a woefully incomplete list.&mdash;Kww(talk) 00:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Thryduulf: I take it your point is that sanctions apply both to areas that clearly are pseudoscience and to areas that, while they may or may not be pseudoscience, have a lot of people saying they are pseudoscience. I understand that in theory. In practice, can you point at an area where you think the distinction actually matters? I can't think of one where a legitimate field is called pseudoscience in reliable sources.&mdash;Kww(talk) 01:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by John Carter
This is a not unreasonable question regarding the definition of pseudoscience for our purposes, and it might help to have some clear lines of demarkation on this point. One possibility is to go by what people involved in the field of pseudoscience consider pseudoscience. WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles is a list I generated some time ago based on articles included in one Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, and I find that one of its longer articles specifically is about chiropractic, which would I think be a reasonable indicator of how that particular topic might qualify. I also would believe that, in all likelihood, anything with a separate article or section in that source or other reference-type overview works on pseudoscience would probably qualify under the sanctions. But there is a very big gray area of where pseudoscience, parapsychology, paranormal and occult do and do not overlap, and it might be beneficial if we could have some sort of specific indicator of where the topics do and do not overlap here. So, for instance, some "occult"-ish topics make some sort of claims to being "scientific" in some way, like maybe Taoism's registers, which are effectively theological equivalents of the Tennessee Blue Book and the Official Manual State of Missouri, among others, might qualify as "pseudoscientific" or might not. Other potential gray areas of possible overlap exist between these topics as well. John Carter (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * This is simply commening on the obvious, of course, but so far as I can see nothing in the extremely long section by Neuraxis above seems to deal with the specific point of contention here, specifically, whether chiropractic is a pseudoscience or not. That is an entirely separate point from whether or not it has significant support in any number of areas. For chiropractic to be demonstrated to be something other than pseudoscience, what would be more or less required as per policy and guidelines would be a reliable source which either explicitly says chiropractic is not a pseudoscience, or, possibly, an independent reliable source which clearly states that chiropractic is a science. Pseudoscience has a rather specific definition, specifically, that the topic claims to be scientific but is not accepted as such by the scientific community. That is a completely separate matter from whether it can be or is useful or beneficial. I regret to say that the lengthy postings by Neuraxis above could themselves not unreasonably be counted as refusing to get to the point as per WP:IDHT. John Carter (talk) 16:18, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I received a comment from Neuraxis on my talk page here, asking me to review a source for whether it can be seen to establish chiropractic as a science. I have looked at the source in question, and regret to say that I saw nothing which indicates it is not pseudoscience. The most directly relevant quote so far as I can see is "Chiropractic in particular made significant gains toward legitimacy throughout the last few decades," which at least implicitly indicates that chiropractic has yet to achieve legitimacy, as it is still making gains toward legitimacy. I also note that psychoanalytic theory, and by extension psychoanalysis, is counted as a pseudoscientific topic in the encyclopedia I linked to above, and is described as such in our article. It, however, still plays a significant role in the field of psychiatry, and there are at least a few hospitals which have psychiatrists using psychoanalytic methods in their staff. I also note that the article is limited to one particular country, Canada, and as such cannot be seen to be relevant to the profession outside of Canada and that, so far as I saw, it does not say that chiropractic is a science, just that some chiropractors are included in some medical teams, much like some psychoanalytic psychiatrists. Like I said above, pseudosciences are not necessarily useless, and can at least sometimes in some cases be effective. That however does not necessarily mean that they qualify as sciences or as scientific. John Carter (talk) 21:15, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S. I see that the The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, ed. Michael Shermer, ABC-Clio, 2002, ISBN 1-57607-653-9, has an article of over two pages in length on "prayer and healing," which seems to be substantially similar to "faith healing." I am preparing a list of articles and subarticles from the encyclopedic section of that book for inclusion in the page listed above as we speak. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Another question on my user talk page from Neuraxis here with my response here, and also another comment and another response. However bizarre it might seem to some to characterize an entire profession as pseudoscience, that too is a conclusion drawn by a single editor, and I don't think we are allowed to use such personal interpretation of the facts to determine our content. Nor can or should we attempt to say that because perhaps a modern version of a discipline might be scientific, that earlier nonscientific versions were also scientific because the current version is. John Carter (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I agree one reference book in the field of pseudoscience is not necessarily conclusive, and I also note that the comparatively few articles in The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience does not include one on chiropractic, and that I haven't yet checked others, some of which might not even be easily available to me. But I do notice that google books here seems to provide numerous print sources, older and at least comparatively recent, indicating that the authors of those books believed chiropractic fell within the bounds of pseudoscience. John Carter (talk) 15:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * @ arbs: It may also be worth noting that this request may have been started based on what an editor named QuackGuru said here in the thread on my talk page that has already been linked to, which indicated that Neuraxis may have attempted to restore a statement sourced to a primary source to the Chiropractic article without having first received consensus, and that, potentially, may have been actionable under the previous ruling if it specifically included chiropractic. Regarding Neuraxis' own scree against me above, I would appreciate it if instead of posting your interminable links and trying to misuse my user talk page, and perhaps engaged in any number of rather predictable attempts at obfuscation, if you did what might seem to be required and provide evidence which indicates, directly and without OR, that your contention is accurate. I say this based on your further comments in the thread I have already linked to on my talk page repeatedly, and I believe attempts to misuse my user talk page to seemingly attempt to perhaps persuade me there. If this request was perhaps prompted by Neuraxis seeking to avoid sanctions for misconduct on the chiropractic page, and it seemingly might be, that is something that perhaps the arbitrators should perhaps be taken into account. John Carter (talk) 00:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Having looked over the history of Neuraxis's 2000-2500 contributions since November 2011 here, I see a total of less than 10 total to article or talk space pages which do not relate specifically to alternative medicine, including prominently acupuncture and chiropractic. I believe it not unreasonable to ask whether this account meets the standards of WP:SPA, and would like to perhaps suggest to that there might be reasonable basis to take any concerns regarding this individual account's conduct to one of the appropriate noticeboards, or perhaps arbitration enforcement. Having said that, I believe the essence of the discussion has Adjwilley started it was to determine the scope of the existing sanctions. Sandstein has commented below that effectively the sanctions on pseudoscience and fringe science has primarily been imposed at AE on only a limited range of articles. Attempting to return to that original subject, I think it would be reasonable to apply the sanctions in the way Sandstein indicated below, while also specifically noting that it can apply to articles on individuals other than Rupert Sheldrake who are also most notable or significantly notable for being proponents of fringe science/pseudoscience, articles on their relevant books or articles or TV appearances or similar, and any other areas that might reasonably be covered under the phrase "broadly construed". This probably wouldn't generally include articles relating to Thomas Dolby or similar individuals notable, if not primarily notable, for being proponents of fringe science/pseudoscience, although I suppose that if the article or talk page was used for comments of the "he's a nut" type, or other defamatory content apparently related to that individual's stance on fringe science/pseudoscience, defining that term by either broad agreement in the academic community of a topic being of that status as per independent academic sources or in some probably smaller number of cases based on clear disregard or dismissal of the specific principles involved.  and other arbs, would that be a reasonable attempt at a hopefully sufficiently detailed and sufficiently broad attempt at definition? John Carter (talk) 14:57, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by BullRangifer/Brangifer
Reply to Adjwilley's Reply to Kww, Enric Naval:


 * The application of pseudoscience discretionary sanctions, and the use of "pseudoscience" terms and categorizations to the topics of chiropractic and acupuncture have much more to do with their underlying philosophies than with actual practice by their members, which can vary widely, all the way from scientific to wildly pseudoscientific, quackery, and operating scams. As long as the professions don't publicly distance themselves from those foundational philosophies, and practices which spring from them, these problems will continue.


 * Here is a very short list:


 * Chiropractic is criticized for its fundamental foundation - vertebral subluxation (VS) and Innate Intelligence (II) - and resultant misuse and overuse of joint manipulation and spinal manipulation


 * Acupuncture is criticized for its fundamental foundation - acupuncture points and meridians


 * Without these foundations, the professions really have no justification for existence, because spinal adjustment without belief in VS and II is merely spinal manipulation, which is performed for very different reasons, and not nearly as frequently, by other professions. Likewise, using acupuncture needles without belief in acupoints and meridians is merely dry needling.


 * Since what I've just said is irrelevant if RS don't back it up, we must go by what RS say, not what I say. They definitely criticize these two professions and their basic practices for pseudoscientific aspects. It is the reliable sources which dictate what we should write. As long as we cite experts on the topics of pseudoscience and quackery, and use proper attribution where necessary, we are on solid ground. That doesn't mean we should violate undue and weight by letting these aspects totally dominate an article, but they should be given adequate space and mention in the articles.


 * Topic banning is usually reserved for editors, like User:Neuraxis, who seek to whitewash these aspects from articles and make them seem more scientific than they are. His latest attempt is to eliminate Chiropractic controversy and criticism.


 * His latest attack on me (above) seems to ignore my edit summaries, which encouraged him to restore his comment in the right spot, after he has edited it properly. I didn't seek to keep it from the discussion at all. Per BRD he should use the talk page to discuss my description of his content as a straw man which would totally redirect this whole discussion toward an agenda of his own, not the subject chosen by Adjwilley. This page is not the place to carry on his battlefield behavior. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Neuraxis:


 * Although it is off-topic for this discussion, Neuraxis insists on inserting his hobby horse into Adjwilley's Clarification request, so let's just slay that lost animal and get on with the original topic. He asks above:


 * "...the fundamental question: Are manual and manipulative therapy for MSK conditions pseudoscientific and fringe?


 * No, it is their manner of use, and the reasons for using them, which are potentially pseudoscientific. They cannot, in and of themselves, be pseudoscientific and/or fringe, any more than an acupuncture needle can be pseudoscientific and/or fringe. Your question is simply worded improperly, IOW it's a straw man. Stop asking it and rethink the matter, and while you're at it, take it somewhere other than this board. It doesn't belong here. This is not the place to push your agenda, which has been reaffirmed. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Newyorkbrad


 * We need to be careful not to go down a dead end alley of misdirection, as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Our job is not to determine whether or not chiropractic is or is not pseudoscience, but to determine what RS say about that matter. Sources are what it always comes back to, not our opinions. The judgment of "pseudoscience" is a value judgment, an opinion, and we simply quote what RS say about the matter, and often attribute the statements accordingly.


 * So, to reiterate, any discussion of whether chiropractic is or is not pseudoscience, although interesting, tends to lead us away from following our sourcing policies, IOW it encourages policy violations. Why? Because if we have that discussion and come to a conclusion, then we naturally tend to use that judgment to decide whether or not to use some RS. That's wrong. We must start with the RS and figure out how to use them. The RS should form our opinions, not the other way around.


 * So let's just stick to the sources. It will always be a matter of opinion whether they are right or not anyway, and we are not allowed to use our own opinions to determine whether to use them or not. That would be censorship and/or whitewashing. If they exist (and they do in abundance), we must determine how to use them in an appropriately framed manner, giving them the weight they deserve. NPOV requires that.


 * Chiropractic has always been considered the flagship of quackery in the alternative medicine world, and it still has enough controversy attached to it that many RS exist which consider significant aspects to be quackery and pseudoscience. That's not just historical, but now. Our main chiropractic article mentions this, and attempts to tone down or remove such mentions are not proper. Such attempts violate NPOV. Editors who attempt such things should be reminded of the discretionary sanctions, and if they persist, they should be topic banned. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Thryduulf


 * Wow! That's very well put: "The suggestion of "if a reliable source about pseudoscience considers it pseudoscientific then it is within the scope" seems like a good starting point for that discussion." -- Brangifer (talk) 06:06, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Neuraxis


 * "Less than 20% of [Canadian] chiropractors (18.8%) were aligned with a predefined unorthodox perspective of the conditions they treat." How reassuring (not)! And Canadian chiropractors are among the more sensible ones. I'd hate to see such a survey taken among American chiros, where the largest part of the profession practices.


 * This quote from your citation needs to be factored into your equation, since it represents mainstream opinions about chiropractic:


 * "In order to explore the attitudes that may have import to policy making and foster potential barriers to interprofessional relations, additional questions were included regarding conditions deemed amenable to chiropractic care, chiropractic practitioner use of X-rays, and views on vaccinations. These questions were based on a previous survey of orthopaedic surgeons’ attitudes towards chiropractic, suggesting them as areas of concern for interprofessional relations [25]. For example, of the 487 surgeons who participated in that survey, approximately 81% were either undecided or agreed that “Chiropractors make excessive use of radiographic imaging”, 91% were either undecided or agreed that “Chiropractors provide patients with misinformation regarding vaccination” and 93% were undecided or disagreed that “Chiropractors treat in accordance with evidence-based practices” (p. 2821)." (my emphasis)


 * It's especially ironic that your source actually demonstrates how factions within chiropractic with unorthodox practice behaviors may have compromised interprofessional relations. It doesn't take much to poison the well for the whole profession, but the profession has always tolerated a significant portion of what they call "bad apples". They need to stop tolerating any of them.


 * It is these opinions which you try to ignore, but NPOV says we must document them too. This is a RS demonstrating mainstream opinion.


 * Throwing lots of references at us doesn't magically remove numerous other RS which say that the profession still has issues with pseudoscientific beliefs and practices. Also, chiropractic researchers have documented that fraud, abuse and quackery are more prevalent in chiropractic than in other health care professions. Unsubstantiated claims about the efficacy of chiropractic have continued to be made by individual chiropractors and chiropractic associations. One of the more recent and dramatic examples of the profession being caught with its pants down is from England when a well-organized skeptical backlash to the BCA libel lawsuit against Simon Singh caused the McTimoney Chiropractic Association to frantically and privately order its members to shutdown their websites and remove any unscientific literature from their clinics. That order was leaked, much to their embarrassment. The skeptics had already downloaded the websites, so the removals were documented and hundreds of complaints filed against them with the authorities. The BCA's response, using a typical "wall of references approach" (something we see on this page. Homeopaths do that too....), was ripped apart. BTW, Singh won the lawsuit. You can read about it here.


 * Your campaign to whitewash the profession really isn't helping your case at all, and although it's certainly caused this clarification request to get sidetracked, maybe it does serve a purpose after all. Now you know why trial lawyers often don't allow their clients to testify, because once the client mentions a subject, it's fair game. Your actions have focused our attention on chiropractic. (Read about the Streisand effect.)


 * Your actions here have highlighted the continued problems with chiropractic, and we are still convinced that the profession, as well as most other forms of alternative medicine, still deserve to be covered by discretionary sanctions. When RS stop consistently including chiropractic among numerous other forms of quackery and pseudoscience, then we'll stop thinking of it in that way. The profession has itself to thank, because it has consistently tried to deny the problems, rather than reform the profession.


 * When the president of the American Chiropractic Association called accusations of quackery a "myth", chiropractic historian, Joseph C. Keating, Jr. (who kindly and cordially helped me do lots of research on the profession before he died) responded by calling his comments "absurd" and stated:


 * "The so-called 'quackery myth about chiropractic' is no myth.....the kernels of quackery (i.e., unsubstantiated and untested health remedies offered as "proven") are ubiquitous in this profession. I dare say that health misinformation (if not quackery) can be found in just about any issue of any chiropractic trade publication (and some of our research journals) and much of the promotional materials chiropractors disseminate to patients. The recent unsubstantiated claims of the ACA are exemplary [examples provided]...It escapes me entirely how Dr. Downing, the ACA, MPI, and Dynamic Chiropractic can suggest that there is no quackery in chiropractic. Either these groups and individuals do not read the chiropractic literature or have no crap-detectors. I urge a reconsideration of advertising and promotion policies in chiropractic." (My emphasis.)


 * That was from 1991, and those charges still ring true. Reading chiropractic trade literature today makes that clear. While things have improved (that's my OR opinion), the profession still hasn't done enough about fixing its "crap-detectors". I couldn't have said it better. It took an insider, a professor within the profession, to say it. Brangifer (talk) 15:31, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to John Carter


 * John, you wrote: "Nor can or should we attempt to say that because perhaps a modern version of a discipline might be scientific, that earlier nonscientific versions were also scientific because the current version is."


 * Very true, and we certainly know that most living chiropractors have been educated under a "straight" paradigm (Life University is the largest chiropractic school in the world, and several other schools are also "straight" schools). We can't say that just because some understanding tending toward scientific legitimacy has suddenly alighted into the minds of some of the younger chiropractors, that all those other chiros are suddenly dead or not practicing under the paradigm of their education. They are still at work and their claims are what's making it hard for the newer, more scientific, chiros to gain legitimacy. It's not fair to them, but they have only their own profession to blame for that situation.


 * Instead of circling their wagons (classic chiropractic and cult behavior), retreating into denial and defensiveness, and attacking skeptics for "not being fair" (sob, sob), they need to vigorously attack their idiot colleagues, no matter if they are the most influential and well established chiros in the business: the ones who own the supply businesses, the ones who patent the techniques, who run the seminars, who own the practice building businesses, the ones who sell very expensive "practice scripts" and contracts (what a scam!), and who own and control the schools.


 * Here's my plea to science-based chiros: Stop the whining and get your profession to publicly admit its failings and publicly distance itself from all this crap and start disciplining unscientific and quackish chiros. Then you might gain some legitimacy. Those chiros are a ball and chain around the profession. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:07, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Neuraxis


 * All I'm getting is denial, defensiveness, and a lack of understanding and knowledge of chiropractic issues and history, past and present. Are you really going to tell me that Life University isn't the largest (for many years at that), wasn't a straight school (maybe still is), and that it temporarily lost its accreditation in about 2003 because it refused to teach differential diagnosis, but only taught that there was only one cause of disease, and a chiropractor's job was to find subluxations and correct them? We're talking about 2003 and huge numbers of recent chiropractors from that school alone, much less Life West, Sherman, etc.. I don't know whether it's the majority of chiropractors, but it's not a little fraction over in a corner. They are not dead. No, I'm hearing denial instead of reform. You're depending on one source which makes it clear that the profession has not yet achieved legitimacy, although it's getting closer.


 * User:John Carter is right in his parsing of English grammar:


 * "The most directly relevant quote so far as I can see is "Chiropractic in particular made significant gains toward legitimacy throughout the last few decades," which at least implicitly indicates that chiropractic has yet to achieve legitimacy, as it is still making gains toward legitimacy."


 * Your own edit shows you agree that your source actually demonstrates how "factions within chiropractic with unorthodox practice behaviors may have compromised interprofessional relations.", yet now you backpedal all you can. Odd behavior... You're seeing the results of those "compromised interprofessional relations", and RS have noted that. We use those skeptical sources in chiropractic articles. It makes no difference whether it's a majority or minority who are unscientific, because it has been and is happening, and we're resisting your attempts to hide that fact. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein
I'm offering my opinion here as one of the administrators who is active at the enforcement noticeboard (WP:AE), in the hope that this "practitioner's view" may help the submitter understand what may in practice be deemed to be within the scope of the sanctions. The discretionary sanctions apply to "articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted". I understand this to include pages related to any topic that has been discussed in reliable sources as constituting or being related to pseudoscience and fringe science, or which is described in its Wikipedia article or categories as such (including, in either case, situations where the classification as pseudoscience or fringe science is disputed). What the terms pseudoscience and fringe science mean is described in their articles. On this basis, each case would need to be examined individually. I don't think that the entirety of the topics grouped under alternative medicine are within the scope of the sanctions, because our article about this topic says that alternative medicine is defined as being "not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method", which can be understood to mean that it is thought to be outside of the concept of science altogether. For instance, practices such as faith healing do not claim to be and are not normally discussed as scientific practices, and the scientific study of their practice is normally ordinary science (theology, sociology etc.) rather than a fringe science itself. However, I imagine that there are many "alternative" medicinal practices which are discussed in terms of their scientific validity, and these can fall within the scope of the sanctions under the conditions described above. Also, as a practical matter, the enforcement log shows that editors have in the past been sanctioned in relation to the alternative medicine topics chiropractic, homeopathy (both many times), mucoid plaque and orthomolecular medicine. Past practice, therefore, indicates that administrators have readily accepted these topics as being subject to discretionary sanctions. However, the majority of sanctions seem to focus on issues related to cosmology, energy (cold fusion, etc.) and the ideas of one Rupert Sheldrake, rather than on alternative medicine.  Sandstein  16:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf
I think the most productive use of people's time here is not to determine whether Chiropractic is within the scope or not, but rather to work out how to determine whether Topic X is within the scope or not. The suggestion of "if a reliable source about pseudoscience considers it pseudoscientific then it is within the scope" seems like a good starting point for that discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 22:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't think changing the wording from "pseudoscience" will help (a rose by any other name and all that). It just needs to be made clear that it doesn't matter whether something is or is not pseudoscientific, just that if a reliable source has called it such then the discretionary sanctions authorised by the Pseudoscience arbitration case are available if needed. This status doesn't impact the article contents in any way, so it is irrelevant whether the label is applied by a single reliable source or by the entirety of reliable sources. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand your points, but we're not calling it "pseudoscience" just noting that some people do call it that. As for the reliable source number, an outlier or outdated source is problematic in this regard I agree but I don't want to cause disputes about whether or not there are a "significant" number of sources or the opinion that calls it pseudoscientific is "substantial" or not. Specifying an exact number (other than >0) or proportion of sources is also obviously problematic ("I've got more sources than you :P"), so how something like this is phrased needs careful thought. Remember here that my goal is only to provide a way to determine whether any given topic is within the pseudoscience topic area, not whether that topic is or is not pseudoscientific. Thryduulf (talk) 16:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

That is indeed my point, but I'm really not interested in which topics actually fall under the classification or not, nor which of those are actually pseudoscience because that doesn't matter. I aim only to provide a test that can be applied to any dispute to determine whether it is eligible for DS under the provisions of this case or not. As Newyorkbrd points out, whether something is actually pseudoscience or not can be a matter of opinion, so it seems best to make the categorisation "things that are called pseudoscience" rather than "things that are pseudoscience" so that the actual status becomes irrelevant and people can get on with settling the dispute at hand rather than arguing about something else as well. Thryduulf (talk) 09:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Statement by QuackGuru
See diff. <font color="Red">QuackGuru ( talk ) 19:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Perhaps we can't avoid having a philosophical discussion about where chiropractic falls on the spectrum between recognized medical science and outright voodoo, or more precisely, where the various aspects of chiropractic fall today or have fallen in the past. But it might be more useful to come at this from a different direction: are there editing problems on chiropractic and related articles that applying the discretionary sanctions to them would help to address? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The editor input here convinces me that Chiropractic is within the scope of the DS. I am beginning to wonder whether it might be desirable to rephrase or define the scope of the DS so instead of or in addition to the word "pseudoscience" we use a more neutral phrase such as "fields whose status as science is either rejected or significantly disputed in the scientific literature." (I'm sure that can be refined.) The point here being not to put lipstick on any pseudoscientific pigs, but to avoid pointless arguments about the wording, and to take up the suggestion of providing guidance to avoid future disputes. Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand Thryduulf's points, but can't agree in full. If I were a believer in chiropractic or another field whose status is disputed, I might well accept that "there is a serious dispute as to whether chiropractic is accepted as scientific," but fight to the death against its being called "pseudoscience." We have enough disputes about the substance of the articles without giving dispositive effect to some label. And I am not convinced that if one reliable source calls an area a "pseudoscience" that should be dispositive; we don't necessarily need a majority of sources calling something pseudoscience or the equivalent, but a single source, though acceptable as an RS, can always be an outlier, either because it reflects a small minority view or because it has become outdated. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:16, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think Sandstein's analysis with respect to the reach of discretionary sanctions is generally correct, though it is interesting to note that faith healing is listed in . T. Canens (talk) 23:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I would also generally agree with Sandstein's analysis. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:24, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I think Sandstein's on the money here. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 17:03, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Sandstein's interpretation seems correct. I'm not sure that redefining the scope is necessary, as Newyorkbrad has suggested, although I do see the point about "pseudoscience" being pejorative. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)