Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland/FAQ

Use of "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust" paper
Reading the FAQ about using the paper in evidence ...by naming or linking to the paper and page number... it sounds like one could submit something along the lines: "Per [link to paper] User X misrepresented sources (pages:13-14,17,19-21), edit warred (pages:14-15,23), was incivil (page:24), violated BLP (pages:18-20) etc." Seems like an extremely easy way to submit evidence, that for all practical purposes would include more content than all named participants word limits combined, while formally having used up only a few dozen words and a single diff. If that's not the intention, then you should probably clarify how it is supposed to work.--Staberinde (talk) 16:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that the point of the evidence phase is to provide content that can be placed into the summary. Since we are being very generous with word limits (effectively having "no limit" since summarised evidence is hatted) there is less of a concern of being concise, and in my opinion if someone can provide this sort of evidence I am not going to stop them, though I would possibly request that they provide the diffs directly. I will have a think about this, discuss with the other drafters, and potentially wait to see if anyone does provide evidence in this fashion, but for the moment I am not seeing anything grossly inappropriate with doing what you suggest. Primefac (talk) 18:22, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with Primefac. We're trying something new. We're going to have to make some adjustments along the way. But as a starting point, if someone wants to link to the paper and include the paper's diffs, that's fine. I know multiple people have already spent time analyzing the validity of the paper's analysis and that could be included as well. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:35, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Aim(s) of the arbitration?
This is probably obvious to people familiar to Wikipedia Arbitration, but it's not obvious to me, and there will be plenty of people looking at this case who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia Arbitration.

What are the goals of this case:
 * are the two evidence-gathering phases aimed at documenting a systematic editing pattern by a group of Wikipedians, or are they aimed at documenting a systematic bias in Wikipedia on this topic, or both?
 * what are the aims of analysing the evidence (mainly just checking and summarising?), and what sorts of decisions could be possible?

If the result of the evidence and the analysis is that (1) there has been a long-term systematic editing bias on this topic by a rather small group of Wikipedians, but acting with good faith and within Wikipedia policy given their access to and understanding of sources, (2) in principle there exist many good (often offline, often in Polish) sources that well-respected researchers have access to but en.Wikipedians do not have access to, then could a result of the arbitration be a proposal of a way of trying to convince/educate the researchers in how to provide access to the sources in a practical rather than hypothetical way to readers and editors of en.Wikipedia, rather than being trapped in an "ivory tower versus the people" situation? Or preparation of a WP: namespace guide to educate the researchers on how to at least document (bibliometry data, quotes, summaries?) the difficult-to-access sources that they see as high-quality? Or would proposals like these be out of scope?

Feel free to add a question to the FAQ rather than answering me directly here - since that's where people will look for answers.

The answer to the question ''Is this case just about the paper? What about other evidence?'' effectively says that the case is "about" the G&K paper and about "the conduct of named parties in this topic area", and hints that the scope is less limited than the reader may expect. I don't really think that this answer the question of the aims - a plain English along the lines of "the aims are ..." would be clearer. Boud (talk) 17:21, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have (hopefully) clarified the concern from your last paragraph (please let me know if I failed in this endeavour) but will need to come back to you on the rest. Primefac (talk) 18:26, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. :) There's a big difference between "not just" vs "not": that definitely clarifies one aspect of my confusion. I assume that the intention was to implicitly acknowledge that while the paper triggered off the case, the paper's validity (or invalidity) is not the topic of the case. Anyway, we'll converge fastest if I propose new text. My suggestion:
 * This case does not aim to judge the validity of the Grabowski & Klein (2023) paper; ; the scope (as indicated on the case header) is the conduct of named parties in the topic areas of World War II history of Poland and the history of the Jews in Poland, broadly construed. The paper can be used as evidence, but other evidence about the conduct of named parties in this topic area is encouraged. See Arbitration for more about the scope and process of arbitration on Wikipedia.
 * There's still part of my question unanswered. It looks like there's a need for another second-level header ==Out of scope== and a question such as Will proposals for handling conflicts between off-wiki expert researchers and on-wiki Wikipedia editors be in scope? and an answer such as No. A possible venue for proposals like this could include starting an idea at Village pump (idea lab) and later proposing it at Village pump (proposals) if there is sufficient support. Boud (talk) 19:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Citation needed
Please change: wait a bit: to
 *  This case is definitely not just about the paper. 
 * '' This case is definitely not just about the Grabowski & Klein (2023) paper.

or similar so that people can easily find the paper that brought this issue to attention. Let's not assume that everybody who browses these pages has already spent hours reading.

If a reference section is not created automatically, then please add ==References== and. Boud (talk) 18:29, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Better wait until I've helped worked through 's response to my previous point, since the text has changed...
 * I've removed your edit request, since there are at least two arbs and likely as many clerks (at minimum) watching this page.
 * As to the substance, we provided a link in the header. Does this still require a full  set? Primefac (talk) 19:03, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, fine about removing the edit-request template.
 * Could you be a bit more explicit about "we provided a link in the header"? In what text section on what page? Maybe it's obvious to you, but not to me ... Boud (talk) 19:11, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Primefac (talk) 19:12, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies for my snark in the previous reply, you are right. I'll see if I can make links to the article more obvious. Primefac (talk) 19:17, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * So how about at least the paper in the text content of the answer? I personally would prefer a full ref tag - and Wikidata makes this easy to do - but I agree that that's a question of taste. Boud (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2023 (UTC) Well, a proper reference acknowledges that the article is a peer-reviewed paper, which is undisputed, whether or not we agree that it was reviewed with sufficient rigour. And the Wikidata link includes at least one archived copy. And we don't want people to think that we're pretending that it's a coincidence that this arbitration followed publication of the paper. Boud (talk) 19:26, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, for me this point is ✅. Boud (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

"TKTK page"?
Is that a typo? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 05:06, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @Theleekycauldron thanks for pointing this out. I was using it in the To come (publishing) sense and then as luck would have it we settled on where the questions would be earlier today so I could provide a link. Barkeep49 (talk) 05:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's what I was getting at, thanks :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:24, 18 March 2023 (UTC)