Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2/Evidence

Request permission to exceed evidence posting limit
This is going to require me to address the conduct more thoroughly, and of more editors, because there were overlapping discussions involving more than one editor among those I've characterized as engaged in advocacy (whether adding promotional, primary source-based material or obstructing critical material from secondary sources) on the Sam Harris article.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 09:35, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The Harris material looks to be very tangential, at best, to the scope of the case, which is American politics, as it seems primarily to relate to Harris' views on religion. Could you please explain how that's within scope here? This isn't meant to be a laundry list of every grievance people have against one another. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:19, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The aspect of Harris's writings and speeches that has caused controversy with respect to its political implications seems to be twofold: first, he embraces a form of scientism and applies that to ethics in a manner that has resulted in him being criticized for espousing a (metaphisical, abstracted) form of positivism that is conducive to scientific racism and causes him to discount and/or misrepresent history; secondly, his singling out of Islam as the religion that evaluates most poorly based on those standards has resulted in his being criticized more directly with respect to his statements on Islam, with allegations of having a "right-wing worldview" comparable to his neoconservative supporters regarding Muslims and US policy in the Middle East, promoting "politically-useful bigotry", applying Huntington's "clash of civilizations" interpretation to current political problems, etc.


 * The conduct issues on that article related to editors seeking to prevent material on the political implications of Harris' views, as discussed by academics writing within the field of their specialization, primarily, into the article. Various arguments were made, with one being that religion and politics are the same in monotheismI quote the editor from this comment, so the material in the subsection on each religion corresponded to political views, making explicit mention of the secondary source commentary redundant he elaborates on his position, etc. As I indicated on his talk page, that seemed to be a strategy aimed at defining a scope excluding material explicitly having political import, which would have preemptively precluded the addition of the material specifically from scholarly sources I was trying to add.


 * Note that the reception of Harris' views has seen commentary addressing implications with respect to political topics such as US foreign policy, torture, the war on terror, ethnic/racial profiling, "the national security state", etc. A survey of some of the material can be seen in the removed "Political" subsection here.


 * I see the scenario as follows. Insofar as US politics is caught up in conflicts with Muslims, and insofar as Harris' writings and statements have caused controversy regarding US policy, etc., overlapping with those conflicts, the high-quality RS commentary on his political views is not tangential, and the manifold tendentious attempts to exclude it from Wikipedia is an editor conduct issue. If you'd like me to constrain the scope, I'd be happy to adjust my evidence submissions so as to accommodate input from the Committee on this situation in advance.


 * Here are a few more scholarly sources touching on these issues that haven't even been mentioned in the article yet.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 15:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid Harris is still rather out of scope here, as he's primarily notable for his religious (or anti-religious, as may be) work and views, and he's really not primarily a political figure. We'd rather keep this to political figures and issues than to people who are primarily notable for other things but happen to have talked about politics. The scope will get impossibly overbroad otherwise, as almost everything can be said to touch politics in some way or another, and many people express political views sometime or another. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, but I'll need further clarification as to how to proceed here, considering that the evidence thus far almost exclusively relates to that article. Note that in respect to the neoconservative views characterization broached by LM2000, including the reference to Robert Kagan, while Kagan is far more widely noted as a prominent neocon (check talk page for sourcing), he also rebuts the characterization, describing himself as a "liberal interventionist". Insofar as there is RS commentary on Harris' political views and their implications, that aspect would seem to be within scope where there are conduct issues related to efforts to exclude such material. While a number of RS (just posted a link to Eskow piece at evidence page) either characterize him as having neoconservative views (Eskow, Greenwald, Hervik) or discuss his views in that context with reference to other "new atheists", the Wikipedia article at present reflects only the "liberal" characterization, and the reference to neoconservative views, etc., (at least a minority POV) I attempted to add in various textual configurations was repeatedly reverted out and the article structured in a manner such as to preclude its inclusion by editors apparently engaged in advocacy.
 * If these aspects of the public discourse on Harris and his work are to be considered out of scope, then are you suggesting that the evidence be deleted? If it's not to be deleted, the full picture needs to be provided to enable a comprehensive assessment of the situation and conduct issues.
 * -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 04:57, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I generally believe in letting people present evidence as they will in their section, unless they're using it to attack others or something like that, and I'm certainly not going to require you to remove your submission. I just don't want Harris to become the focus of this case, as he's such a minor figure in politics, just because that article was at issue recently. The problems in the American politics topic go well beyond Sam Harris, and I'd like to try to address them on a much more general basis. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:04, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, that's understandable. The neoconservativism related material might have become a larger issue if it weren't for the fact that there was only one editor seen to be causing a disturbance. I don't see any other TPM or gun control like issue at the center of the present case, leaving it a little hollowed out without the Collect related material, which spans multiple articles related to neoconservativism, including the tangentially related Harris article.
 * At any rate, while there isn't scope for evaluating American politics on a general basis vis-a-vis the Harris article, there is a fair amount of 'religion and politics' in the mix, in addition to the sideline regarding who is a "true liberal" and who is merely a "liberal critic", who is a neoconservative, etc.
 * In that regard, I will probably figure out how to introduce the material above related to the equivocation of religion and politics with respect to monotheism and say something about competence. wrapping up what I have to contribute regarding the Harris article.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 03:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Closing date approaching
All parties are reminded that the closing date for submitting evidence is 14 April, which is rapidly approaching. Any evidence should be entered by this date, as anything submitted after this date may not be considered by the arbitrators. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC).

Explanation regarding case cross-referencing
I understand that there is some sort of cross-referencing between these two related cases, and I was wondering how that works. I am at the limit as far as this case goes concerning evidence, but may need to rebut anything that shows up before this phase closes. -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 12:07, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The opening motion hopefully answers your questions: Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2. --L235 (t / c / ping in reply ) 00:58, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Evidence closed
Evidence is now closed for this case. --L235 (t / c / ping in reply ) 00:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Request strike of all of 's "evidence." She named me in a number of items but didn't notify me at all.  Her evidence seems to be a personal and tangential vendetta against  and without warning or merit it reads like a disruptive screed thrown in at the last minute to avoid rebuttal.  I'd suggest that she submit a separate arbcom request if she believes they merit action.  She left out other editors that put more of that into context and with evidence closed and it's extremely tangential relationship to this case, it's out of place.  --DHeyward (talk) 05:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I had (barely) enough time to rebut it, though I imagine the committee would have accepted a late rebuttal via email. Aside from that, most of the complaints seem about my editing outside the scope of political articles, so not sure why it would impact the case anyway.--MONGO 06:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The evidence is against MONGO, not DHeyward. None of it should be taken as evidence against DHeyward. I did not think it necessary to notify someone who is tangentially related to the evidence, but I'm honestly not terribly familiar with all arbcom rules in this regard. All of the evidence is related to politics and MONGO's behavior related to it. No personal vendetta, just my witnessing of behavior related to this case. I am not opposed to giving MONGO more time to address things if he wants. The timing of the posting was (1) because I was hesitant to post in the first place and (2) because evidence was drawing to a close. I made sure to not post on the final day because that would be downright shitty of me.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 16:50, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Half the "evidence" is completely unrelated to American Politics. The portions of my exchanges with NBSB and issues of Viriditas badgering of Collect which was ended by my complaint to AN/I and substantiated as harassment by several admins and one former and one current arbitrator.--MONGO 17:39, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The discussion about Sheldon Wolin and his concept of Inverted Totalitarianism was directly related to American politics, and the discussion about the film was also related to American politics. The threat made to "radicals" was obviously made with reference to politics in regard to the related discussions about topics pertaining to American politics, etc.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 02:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think MONGO or I ever edited Sheldon Wolin. Nothing on my talk page regarding editors that were wikistalking me (EF mentioned 2 of 5 in that discussion).  It had nothing to do with any movie, it had to do with editors making their only edits on a page to revert me after an entirely different case.  It had nothing to do with this case at all.  An arbitrator,  didn't even believe my documenting that was appropriate so now that it's been brought to this case, I can hardly see how it's now suddenly relevant to anything.  EF's accusations/evidence is simply not related to this case.  --DHeyward (talk) 03:49, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for the ping, what is it I said was inappropriate? -- Euryalus (talk) 04:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Edits were primarily about American Sniper (and movie itself, news coverage of it, and the talk page discussion thereof was political in nature to say the least), Robert Kagan, or about other parties to this case. I'll let the arbs decide it it's relevant or not to this case. I honestly don't care too much about the whole thing, but upon thinking of the evidence for a while felt it was important to at least mention MONGO's behavior. If the arbs don't think it's notable or related, they're welcome to ignore or strike the evidence. Personally I think it's related.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 04:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

My comments to NBSB bad nothing to do with politics...they were solely about how he managed to show up at that article and another and get into a melee with DHeyward. I didn't discuss politics with him at all. My comments about Viriditas were about his badgering of Collect which I reported to get him to cease. Frankly, you seem to have felt some injustice from me but I have no idea what that could be.--MONGO 04:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The comments about NSBS occurred on a Talk page of an article related to American politics. The involved discussion about Wolin was launched by a comment in this thread about the applicability of FRINGE in relation to American politics.--  Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 05:10, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Here, I was collecting the stalking that MONGO is now being taken to task for commenting on. The basis of the complaint EF is making is about editors that only edited American Sniper because I edited it and did so to revert or undo edits I had made (2 of 5 editors that had done similar things in a weeks timeframe).  EF is now using MONGO's response to that stalking/hounding/whatever as evidence of wrongdoing.  This wasn't considered "american politics" issue at the time (4 days after this case was opened, you deleted it from user space) and I dare say no one else did except EF and her last minute evidence dump against MONGO.  --DHeyward (talk) 04:51, 16 April 2015 (UTC)