Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 2/Evidence

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Evidence presented by SchmuckyTheCat
I will add new evidence to this page if necessary. I also incorporate by reference all of my contributions to the previous case this succeeds:

3 July 2005

 * Instantnood changes two lines renaming Taiwan and a PRC government agency - no edit summary, marked minor edit.
 * Alassius reverts him with edit summary "POV sneak"

10 July 2005

 * a lame edit war, Instantnood asserting that HK literature is not a subcategory of Chinese Literature.
 * both involved parties (Instantnood and Huaiwei) go to 3RR.
 * Instantnood points out in his defense that he has five reverts in two days, but not four reverts in one day, making it obvious that he's gaming the 3RR rule by timing the reverts.
 * Revert wars, even without 3RR, are disruptive to Wikipedia. Gaming wikipedia policy by timing reverts to not exceed 3RR in 24 hours is just as disruptive than breaking 3RR itself, it shows contempt of the spirit of the policy.

October

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 * 'nood proposes an article for deletion specifically to WP:POINT


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Evidence presenterd by Snowspinner
Here is the body of discussion generated by Instantnood on this matter. I am submitting whole talk pages because, well, the point is the insane volume of discussion/votes/reconsiderations Instantnood has caused: Talk:List of Taiwan-related topics (by category). Plus some archives. I haven't found the archives because my head hurts as much as yours does at this point.

This is not a content dispute - nobody is asking the arbcom to rule on what to call the two countries. Nobody is asking the arbcom to dictate how the NPOV policy applies to China. I don't even dispute Wgfinley's claim that Instantnood is right in this dispute. He may well be. I don't know. I don't care.

Consistant attempts at voting and reconsideration of a point after consensus has been reached is disruptive. It's disruptive if you're right. It's disruptive if you're wrong. It is, in many ways, worse if you're right because it serves to make your side look disruptive and trolling, and thus makes reasonable people side against you. In other words, it hurts the cause of doing the right thing. It's bad. It needs to be acted upon.

That's it. Instantnood is disruptive. Right or wrong, the way he handled the dispute caused disruption. Snowspinner 14:54, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

(Resubmitted from original case)

History
To discuss the current disputes between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) would require much space and decades of rehashing that is not necessary. It is important to identify that difficulties in this case are presented by the policy of deliberate ambiguity by which these governments themselves and other governments refer to and interact with each other. Equally important is that naming conventions for these entities have been hotly contested from the UN, to the World Trade Organization, to the International Olympic Committee so for Wikipedia to also encounter these issues is not surprising.

Similarly, the debate on NPOV naming conventions for the geographical and political entities in "China" is as old as Wikipedia itself. During the origins of the debate which led to the current NPOV China Naming convention (please note an older version is linked here to demonstrate the convention as it existed before attempts to modify it as part of this dispute), a clear division in consensus materialized -- those who insist that NPOV must be maintained and the naming convention should be the paramount consideration and those who believe that method is tedious, confusing, and not in keeping with common names.

Creation of the NPOV China Naming Convention
Up until this point most of the discussion is taking place on Talk:China but moves to Wikipedia Talk: Naming conventions (Chinese). In November 2002 there is finally some movement in the dispute when Fred Bauder puts forth an idea that would form the foundation of the current NPOV China Naming convention:


 * Wikipedia entries should avoid taking sides on issues such as the status of Taiwan and Tibet. In particular the word China should not be used to be synonymously with areas under current administration by the People's Republic of China or with Mainland China.  The term "Mainland China" is a non-political term to be can used when a comparison is to be made with Taiwan, and "China proper" is a non-political term which can be used when making a comparison with Tibet.  Although the used of the term "Manchuria" is considered by some to be somewhat objectionable when used in Chinese, it is largely considered a non-political and non-objectionable term when used in English.


 * A decision was made after extended discussion on Talk:China to use China as the title of the article on mainland China (People's Republic). Fred Bauder 12:39 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Agreement is quickly reached that this proposal is the best resolution to the dispute. Beginning at this point several decisions are made that are still in use today:
 * China refers to "the geographical and cultural entity in East Asia".
 * Mainland China refers to the "geographical area under de facto control of the PRC".
 * Taiwan refers only to the island of Taiwan.
 * People's Republic of China refers to the current government of Mainland China founded in 1949.
 * Republic of China refers to the government founded in 1912 "from its beginnings as the former regime of Mainland China to its current existence on Taiwan today."
 * A disambiguation page is created to help direct users as well as liberal references towards disambiguation at the beginning of all of the above articles.

Evolution of Wikipedia
At this point discussion on Talk:China is primarily about that article itself. But, we find one comment there of interest regarding the nature of this political dispute and how it applies to Wikipedia:


 * It is like groundhog day here. The facts regarding definitions are explained. Then people misunderstand or misrepresent them, go off on irrelevant tangents, so the facts are explained again, people come back, misunderstand them, misrepresent them, go off on tangents so the facts are explained again, people come back misrepresent them . . . . oh God, will someone please wake me up from this nightmare!!! ÉÍREman 23:21 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC) (Monty Python should make a film of this page. It is surreal enough!)

This points out the interesting nature in the evolution of Wikipedia and the current phase that it is in. There are established norms and conventions within the community that are formed by the current group of users. Time passes and new users come who either aren't aware of those norms and conventions or don't agree with them and pursue avenues to have them changed. This is only natural and beneficial. However, in order to prevent Wikipedia from becoming controlled by individual blocks of users at a time those norms and conventions need to be difficult to change. This is the absolute central theme to the requirement of consensus to change established policy.

This is also the central point of our case and why we believe the Arbcom needs to intervene in this matter. Continuing from Policies and guidelines:


 * Most policies and guidelines are thus enforced by individual users editing pages, and discussing matters with each other. Some policies are also enforced by temporary blocks (notably as a mechanism for dealing with vandalism) by admins. In extreme cases the Arbitration Committee may make a ruling to deal with highly disruptive situations, as part of the general dispute resolution procedure.

We are of the belief that the Arbcom needs to intervene in this case to prevent this issue from becoming Groundhog Day again and again in the future.

Lull Before The Storm
Harmony on the naming of articles and use of terms ensues at this point. Most of the discussion on naming conventions relates to translation of terms into English, style, usage and other matters not part of the political dispute. Three archives of now long conversations are created   and all talk of the dispute has now left the current discussion page.

Occasionally someone will stumble into Talk:China looking to discuss the naming convention but is quickly referred back to Wikipedia Talk:Naming conventions (Chinese).

Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day for this dispute actually begins on December 8, 2004. It is started, interestingly enough, when an anonymous user (or one who didn't sign their name, it is difficult to tell as this talk page is now archived) wants to change the way the articles are named. Jiang who has been a frequent participant in the conversations going back quite some time refers this user to the adopted convention.

Late in January Insantnood and others start a project to bring categories and articles into compliance with the NPOV China Naming convention.. His proposals aren't met with broad support but discussion and consensus building on them continues to take place.

A brief lull ensues but is introduced again a couple of months later in February 2005 by Curps who states the NPOV China Naming convention contains POV statements.. A rather lengthy and heated discussion erupts. Jiang tries to direct the discussion and inform about previous discussion regarding the convention.

Curps has exited the discussion at this point but decides to just change sections of the policy himself  but gets reverted twice   and isn't heard from again until the end of March.

At this point jguk enters the fray. I ask for some patience here as diffs are unavailable since the conversation has been archived but it important to point out some of his statements and how he goes about entering the discussion. Therefore, these quotations will be from the earlier link but will be quoted inline.


 * The term "Republic of China" is little used and little understood. I admit I was thoroughly confused when I first came across the articles dealing with "Taiwan". The first principle in good article writing is not to confuse the reader. We have one generally understood term, "Taiwan", and one little understood term, that is confusing, "ROC". As to which one we should use - it's obvious - "Taiwan", as it's the only term that is generally used! jguk 19:45, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We should point out that at this point the convention has been in place for a little over two years without any development or movement. Looking at these comments it's difficult to distinguish it from comments made previously when the convention was adopted:


 * Probably, most people that want to refer to the country People's Republic of China will link to this page, as China is the name by which it is commonly known. The "PR of" part is usually only added in formal use. As far as I can judge, most of the articles linking to China also intend to link to the PR (or perhaps the "old China") but few or none intend to link to the ROC, which is better known as Taiwan - that article is also located at Taiwan.


 * I propose to:


 * * put the PR of China's article at China
 * * put a redirect at People's Republic of China to China
 * * put a redirect at Republic of China to Taiwan (it probably already exists)


 * Jheijmans 07:12 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Again, the assertions are the same -- Taiwan is the common name and the article should reflect that, this view was thoroughly debated in 2002 and the convention was reflective of that debate.

Here also jguk tries to make accusations of bias concerning the convention:


 * The precision you are referring to is generally of little importance to most articles on Taiwan. There is no need to deliberately overemphasise the non-Taiwan bits of the ROC to claim that articles are better named as ROC. Let me make this clear - I have never seen the term "Republic of China" or "ROC" used here in the UK. If I were to ask most people here what the capital of the Republic of China is, I imagine most would answer "Beijing". Please keep articles titles where a worldwide readership will expect to see them. Please do not confuse. And please do not keep overemphasing the difference between Taiwan and ROC, which only seems to be important in American politics and nowhere else! jguk 10:57, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This comment demonstrates a clear lack of understanding about the consensus that was reached to adopt the convention, American politics were never mentioned in the discussion.

Dispute Spreads
This isn't the only conversation ongoing however, now the conversations are across a few different topics and efforts including renaming templates and a stub-sorting project. The persons in the debates are usually the same and the positions are the same. What is being debated is the convention itself and almost none of the discussion is on the convention's talk page.

It is now early March and Instantnood tries to reframe the issue again on the convention's talk page. This conversation has since been moved to a separate talk page after no responses to his proposal on the debate. At this point all hell breaks loose.

SchmuckyTheCat now enters the fray and opens by stating he believes the convention's preferred term of "Mainland China" is " absolutely meaningless semantic drivel. It should be removed from the naming conventions.". Again, a reference to the convention as opposed to the proposal of complying with the convention.

Huaiwei states that each of the changes requires discussions of their own. This is clearly the impetus for Instantnood to create the polls later on which are mentioned in jguk's filing of arbitration.

Schmucky offers some more opposition to the convention..

jguk enters his vote asking "how long will it take for Instantnood to realise he's in the minority here." A clear show of disrespect for his position.

The only remaining opposition references the convention's methodology, one I have demonstrated was quite vigorously debated and hashed out for the better part of a year and left to exist in peace for more than two years, as "ugly and cumbersome".

Finally, there are several supporters of the proposal which I will not include diffs on but in contrast to inflammatory language such as "semantic drivel", "when will he realise he's in the minority" and "ugly and cumbersome" they reflect respect for the consensus reached in establishing the convention and the need for accuracy.

Attempts to Change Convention
In mid-March Schmucky introduces an exhaustive proposal in the form of "statements" he believes are consensus and for members to list if they support or not.. Members start making comments about their positions on the various statements listed:


 * Statement 1 is rejected, no indication of support.
 * Statement 2 is an even split.
 * Statement 3 is generally endorsed.
 * Statement 4 only has one vote with most comments stating it is confusing.
 * Statement 5 is generally opposed.
 * Statement 6 is rejected.
 * Statement 7 is rejected.

Not satisfied, with no consensus to change the convention jguk decides to add the NPOV tag to the middle of the convention with a comment stating that he believes ROC should just to be referred to as "Taiwan" clearly ignoring the comments made on Schmucky's "statements" above.

Edit War on Convention
While Schmucky's "statement" polling is underway Jiang makes edits to the policy and explains in the talk page  in an effort to try to reach a consensus on changing the policy. Despite this attempt Schmucky decides to reinsert the NPOV tag without discussion.

Xiong makes his entrance into the discussion by moving mass sections of the a discussion page he created entitled Talk:PRC vs ROC. He is reverted three times by Ran   who asks him to stop  as well as by Jiang.

'''Update: Since the original entry of this evidence Xiong has filed his own evidence apologizing for the actions above. We wish to thank him for the apology as well as state that were an attitude like that more prevalent in this debate this arb case would likely not be necessary.'''

An anon revises the convention without discussion and is reverted by Jiang  who noted there was no discussion. The same user makes a series of edits   with Penwhale making a partial revert.

Instantnood makes some suggested changes and marks them with comments. One section again gets marked with the NPOV tag but is reverted by Jiang. Schmucky puts it back. Schmucky also goes about changing and merging categories without any consensus and apparently without regard for the outcome of his "statements" that he considered to be consensus forming.. Ran points out the lack of consensus and the fact that Schmucky didn't sign it. Which brings us to the current status of the dispute.

Conduct Under Fire
Finally, we would like to thank SchmuckyTheCat for introducing Instantnood's RFC as evidence since it clearly shows:


 * The usual cast of characters who consistently insult and attack our client: SchmuckyTheCat, jguk, ExplorerCDT (who, by his own admission, called our client "a fucking annoying gnat" amongst other things), Huaiwei (who has said he has no intention of honoring the outcome resulting from VfD ), and Mababa (who has made bombarded on Wally's page, , Wgfinley's page , , and Instantnood's page , , and the poll discussion page ,  on issues ranging from chiding Wally and Wgfinley for representing Instantnood, demand for explanations ad infinitum, etc.).
 * Aside from themselves there are no endorsements of those views or the position taken on the RFC.
 * While some may disagree with our client's methods at times most agree his edits are consistently made in good faith: "Jguk and others have been convincingly told at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) that their mass media devoloped vision of the Taiwan-China conflict cannot be suitably reproduced in an encyclopedia that adheres to accuracy and npov. Instead, they have ignored the fact they have been out-argued (and have therefore failed to change the policy) by taking "oppose" votes at WP:RM, either by users like myself who object on different grounds or other users who are ignorant of the rules, as evidence of Instantnood's bad conduct. Instantnood has been trying to enforce the rules: they should either show the rules dont apply or work to change the rules; they have failed to do either."
 * "Instantnood's behavior has been well within the bounds established by the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia."
 * "User:ExplorerCDT, User:jguk, and others have taken this debate in a different direction, partly out of self-professed ignorance and/or without being aware of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)."

In short, there is one party who has kept his cool, refrained from personal attacks and insults, tried his best to follow established Wikipedia policies and guidelines and interestingly enough that is the person who had this case filed against him, Instantnood.

Conclusion
Despite the murky political waters this dispute originates from the issue is really a rather simple one:


 * The NPOV China Naming convention is a few years old and has remained relatively stable and untouched since it was adopted.
 * The convention is unambiguous -- terms are clearly defined for use in a geographic sense and in a political sense.
 * The convention was precisely crafted to best retain NPOV while presenting the information, NPOV does not mean that no one is offended by terms used within the convention.
 * There are some that believe the term "mainland China" is "drivel" and not in current use is in conflict with evidence supplied by Mababa showing its use outside of Wikipedia, heck, I'll throw in one of my own.
 * There are some who refuse to believe that ROC is an accepted short form for the government primarily constituted on the Island of Taiwan and believe it is not widely accepted despite clear evidence to the contrary including this computer case box from my very own living room.
 * The above notwithstanding, there has not been a clear consensus to change the NPOV China Naming convention.
 * If such conventions are not followed and enforcement is subject to votes in every instance the warnings of WP:Democracy come in to play especially when the votes in question typically have 6-15 participants  and then are propped up as the "will of the community" based on slim or nonexistent majorities.
 * While the warnings of WP:Bureaucracy should be kept in mind, the convention should be followed and applied until a consensus to change it has been reached.
 * Finally, Instantnood has acted in good faith and only started the numerous polls when his opponents reverted his changes by the use of polls and he was attempting to move the discussion forward after sound rejection of ScmuckyTheCat's precis. For Instantnood's critics to take issue with him using polls to try to move forward when numerous polls are used against him is not only ridiculous it's harmful to the community.  Polls are not meant to be used as tools to silence minority viewpoints, this is clear in WP:Democracy.  Yet that is exactly what his opponents are saying by maintaining the position that Instantnood should just give up and go away since their alleged majority has spoken.  Vigorous minority opinions are not "disruptive" to Wikipedia, they help form the foundry in which consensus is forged.

Supplementary
To be expanded upon. Above is a resubmission of information found at the original evidence page; further remarks and data will be added as it has been compiled. Wally 6 July 2005 21:11 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Susvolans
I am resubmitting my evidence to Instantnood’s first case as I still believe it to be relevant.

The “Political NPOV” is unknown to the German-language Wikipedia
Jimbo made his “absolute and non-negotiable” comment about NPOV, which Instantnood claims the Chinese “Political NPOV” section is an integral part of, in the context of foreign-language Wikipedias. The German-language Wikipedia, with over 200,000 articles, is scarcely a lawless backwater; it has its own Chinese naming convention at de:Wikipedia:Namenskonventionen/Chinesisch; yet there is no “Political NPOV” section or anything like it. As far as the Taiwan versus ROC issue is concerned, the de:Taiwan article is about the country with just a couple of references to the “Republic of China” name; the de:Republik China (“Republic of China”) article concerns itself with the 1912–1949 republic, with a short section about the KMT's flight to Taiwan at he end.

Instantnood’s edit summaries
Instantnood rarely uses edit summaries (see Special:contributions/Instantnood). When they are used, they are often misleading. Instantnood also uses summaries resembling administrative rollback, which is supposed to be reserved for reverting vandalism or clueless new users.

The word “Taiwan” is widely used to include Quemoy and Matsu
See the list at User:Susvolans/List of sources referring to the Taiwan Strait islands as Taiwan.

Instantnood’s demands on Requests for page protection

 * 1) On 15 August 2005, SchmuckyTheCat asks for the protection of List of airports in the People's Republic of China and List of companies in the People's Republic of China to be lifted.
 * 2) Instantnood demands a twoversions template as a condition.
 * 3) Instantnood demands “what the lists were intended for”.

Evidence presented by MarkSweep
See my previous opinion. --MarkSweep 02:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Rebuttal of Susvolans's comments

 * The “Political NPOV” is unknown to the German-language Wikipedia &mdash; "Political NPOV" refers to a section of Naming conventions (Chinese), which outlines the long-standing consensus of the community. It is not so much about the NPOV principle per se as it is about elucidating what the current consensus view is regarding what counts as sufficiently unbiased. That section of the naming conventions makes certain recommendations about the usage of potentially controversial terms like "China", "Taiwan", etc. The conventions explicitly adopted by the community here on En do indeed clash with the conventions in force on De.  However, I don't see any problem with that: each language-specific project has its own conventions, policies, jurisdiction, etc.  The ArbCom has traditionally refrained from making any sort of content decision (though they have the authority to do so), and in this case who is to say that the De conventions need to be harmonized with the En conventions?  Going down the road toward cross-language standardization seems generally infeasible and a fundamentally bad idea.


 * The word “Taiwan” is widely used to include Quemoy and Matsu &mdash; Again, this is mostly (but not entirely) a content issue and the reality of the usage is not disputed. In fact, our own article on Taiwan mentions that the term is used informally in certain contexts to refer to (the territories administered by) the Republic of China, which governs Taiwan island, Quemoy, Matsu, and a few other territories (plus it has in the past officially claimed authority over mainland China and Mongolia, among others).  The problem is that in some contexts one has to choose precisely one term: for example, while each article can have many incoming redirects and can belong to many categories, it can only have one canonical title.  The naming conventions specify what the community consensus is regarding controversial terminology. In cases like article titles, where only one alternative can be chosen, it makes sense to pick the least controversial, most neutral, and most accurate term.  In some instances that may be "Taiwan", in others it may be "Republic of China", and various compromises have also been proposed.  The naming conventions have further recommendations about which terms are appropriate in which contexts.  Again, those conventions have been hammered out carefully over the course of several years and have remained essentially unchanged during the past year or two.  Attempts to fundamentally change the conventions were made earlier this year but were unsuccessful.  Since the naming conventions are uncontroversial, I fail to see why the ArbCom would want to visit the content aspects of this issue. However, as I've argued before, questions remain about the applicability and enforcement of the naming conventions, which the ArbCom could and should address. --MarkSweep 02:25, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


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