Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood, et al./Proposed decision

Motion by Wgfinley on behalf of Instantnood
We would like to request that all parties to this case as listed refrain from making renaming, moving, creating articles, categories and what have you for items concerning Greater China including PRC, ROC, Mainlain China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. while this case is being heard. The reason for this is the enforcement of the NPOV China Naming convention is the heart of our case and since this case was initially filed SchmuckyTheCat and others have made numerous edits and changes to these pages.

Due to the massive amount of evidence contained below we believe that an injunction as suggested above is very much in order while the case is being considered. --Wgfinley 22:45, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * From Wikipedia's point of view the question is whether reversable changes are being engaged in such as moving of pages back and forth or revert wars. As your client can on his own, by ceasing aggressive action, avoid such churning, there is no need for the arbitration committee to issue an injunction. Fred Bauder 14:02, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * Failing to take any action would set the dangerous precedent that if you don't agree with someone just file an arb case against them so they can be silenced out of fear of being accused of "warring" and then go and make all the changes you like. I would think a direction by the Arbcom to have the matter remain as status quo while the case is being heard would be prudent.  As it is now things aren't status quo, my client has been silenced by this case and his opponents who filed this action are having a gay old time changing everything in sight.  --Wgfinley 20:49, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Since this is a talk page, allow me to say that I'm shocked to discover the massive amount of changes detailed below. I had previously encouraged Instantnood to refrain from making any edits relating to this unresolved debate. I had assumed that this would simly be prudent and that all parties would agree that further changes would at best complicate the whole matter. Now I see that SchmuckyTheCat went ahead and made a large number of changes, completely ignoring the fact that the debate is necessarily stalled due to the ArbCom case, and was quite far from resolution anyway. This is not good and may in fact set a dangerous precedent, as Wgfinley points out. --MarkSweep 21:24, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * When an agreement is reached regarding naming conventions, all of the folks editing these pages can then change them to conform to whatever agreement is made. What I will be looking for is a good faith effort to reach an agreement. Fred Bauder 02:03, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Mar 29
SchmuckyTheCat is She/he has also been moving around articles
 * depopulating category:Laws of mainland China while the discussion at WP:CFD has not been closed.
 * from category:Political parties in mainland China to category:Political parties in the People's Republic of China, and
 * from category:Youth wings of political parties of mainland China to category:Youth wings of Chinese political parties.
 * The list of airports in Mainland China was moved to list of airports in the People's Republic of China, and
 * list of political parties in mainland China to list of political parties in the People's Republic of China.

Changing titles

 * Elections in mainland China moved to Elections in the People's Republic of China #1
 * Elections in mainland China moved to Elections in the People's Republic of China #2
 * List of political parties in mainland China moved to List of political parties in the People's Republic of China #1
 * List of political parties in mainland China moved to List of political parties in the People's Republic of China #2
 * Talk:List of airports in mainland China (his comment)
 * Talk:List of airports in the People's Republic of China (his comment)
 * List of airports in mainland China moved to List of airports in the People's Republic of China #1
 * List of airports in mainland China moved to List of airports in the People's Republic of China #2

Depopulating categories
category:Laws of mainland China
 * Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China
 * Category:Chinese numbered policies
 * People's Republic of China's trademark law
 * Hukou
 * Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China

category:Elections in mainland China category:Political parties in mainland China
 * Category:Elections in mainland China (category pseudo-deleted)
 * Elections in mainland China (retitled by SchmuckyTheCat already)
 * Category:Political parties in mainland China (category pseudo-deleted)
 * Communist Party of China
 * Inner Mongolian People's Party
 * Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang

category:Youth wings of political parties of mainland China
 * Category:Youth wings of political parties of mainland China (adding to speedy deletion)
 * Communist Youth League

category:Airports of mainland China
 * Category:Airports of mainland China (changed to redirect)
 * List of airports in mainland China (retitled by SchmuckyTheCat already)
 * Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport

Other edits

 * Template:Politics of the People's Republic of China (adding category)

Did not respect poll result

 * Sar
 * SAR

Not sticking with naming conventions regarding political NPOV
This series of edits (economy of the People's Republic of China), this edit (Chinese federalism) and this edit (Capital punishment in the People's Republic of China) by SchmuckyTheCat seems clearly not following the naming conventions. He replaced all references to "mainland China" with "China", effectively equating the two terms.

In this edit (Tian Tan Buddha), she/he's implying Taiwan not part of China, which is not a NPOV.

Changing titles
By the way, she/he's been moving list of companies in the People's Republic of China to list of companies in mainland China (at 01:41 Apr 2). I have moved it back just now.
 * Update: List of companies in mainland China is moved to list of companies in the People's Republic of China again, at 16:19, Apr 2.

She/he moved
 * communications in mainland China to communications in the People's Republic of China (at 20:58, Apr 1),
 * media in China to media in the People's Republic of China (at 20:36, Apr 1),
 * Internet in China to Internet in the Peope's Republic of China (at 20:45, Apr 1),
 * media in China to media in the People's Republic of China (at 20:47, Apr 1),
 * capital punishment in mainland China to capital punishment in the People's Republic of China (at 20:35, Apr 1)
 * cinema of mainland China to cinema of the People's Republic of China (at 19:42, Apr 1)

Moving articles between categories
She/he moved the following articles from category:Mainland China to category:People's Republic of China
 * Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (at 20:30, Apr 1)
 * People's Bank of China (at 20:29, Apr 1)
 * Civil service of the People's Republic of China (at 19:27, Apr 1)

She/he has rewritten the PICC article, and she/he's also getting into trouble with Ran with Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China (see its discussion page).

Depopulating categories
Update: SchmuckyTheCat kept depopulating category:Laws of mainland China, despite the words " Please do not remove this notice or empty the category while the question is being considered. " on the CFD template. The articles and categories being taken off from this category include:
 * Intellectual property in the People's Republic of China (diff)
 * Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China (diff #1, #2, #3, #4, #5)
 * Hukou (diff #1, #2, #3, #4)
 * Category:Chinese numbered policies (diff #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7)
 * Road Traffic Safety Law of the People's Republic of China (diff #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7)
 * People's Republic of China's trademark law (diff #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6)

She/he has also removed Ping An of China and PICC from category:Insurance companies of mainland China, despite an earlier decision at WP:CFD.

Moving articles between categories
Further, she/he has set up category:Culture of the People's Republic of China, and moved Chinese house church from category:Culture of mainland China to it.

See also the discussion at category talk:Culture of the People's Republic of China. &

Changing titles

 * Internet in China to Internet in the People's Republic of China (at 20:45, Apr 1, 2005)
 * Police in mainland China to Police in the People's Republic of China (at 15:03, Apr 5, 2005)

Moving articles between categories

 * Xinhua News Agency (from category:Mainland China to category:People's Republic of China)
 * China News Service (from category:Mainland China to category:People's Republic of China)
 * Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China (from category:Economy of mainland China to category:Economy of the People's Republic of China)

Populating disputed categories
Category:Laws of the People's Republic of China Category:Companies of the People's Republic of China
 * Law of the People's Republic of China
 * Administrative Litigation Law of the People's Republic of China
 * Custody and repatriation
 * National Judicial Exam
 * Traditional Chinese law (see also User talk:SchmuckyTheCat)
 * Norinco

New categories and populating new categories
Category:Religion in the People's Republic of China (created at 01:39, Apr 6, 2005) Category:Internet in the People's Republic of China (created at 01:03, Apr 6, 2005) Category:Culture of the People's Republic of China (created at 21:45, Apr 4, 2005) (see also category talk:Culture of the People's Republic of China)
 * Three-Self Patriotic Movement (moved from category:Religion in mainland China)
 * Chinese house church (moved from category:Religion in mainland China)
 * Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (moved from category:Religion in mainland China)
 * Religion in China (moved from category:Religion in China)
 * Hui pan-nationalism
 * Brother Yun
 * Big mama
 * Strong Nation Forum
 * Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
 * Internet in the People's Republic of China
 * China Youth Network Civilization Convention
 * List of words blocked by the Chinese government
 * Discipline Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of China
 * Han chauvinism
 * May Fourth Movement
 * Image:Cultrev.jpg
 * Chinese nationalism
 * Culture of Communist China
 * Maoism

New categories and populating new categories
Category:Religion in the People's Republic of China
 * Protestantism in China

Changing the content from "mainland China" to "China" or "PRC"

 * CITIC
 * Kelly Chen
 * Economy of Benin
 * Economy of Madagascar
 * List of cemeteries
 * List of countries by rail transport network size
 * List of straits
 * List of mathematicians
 * Time zone

Changing the format of presentation of mainland China and Hong Kong

 * List of railway companies
 * List of railway stations

Forcing inclusion of Hong Kong and Macao to mainland China-related articles

 * List of airports in mainland China was moved to List of airports in the People's Republic of China at 04:58, 29 Mar 2005 by SchmuckyTheCat. Huaiwei added airports of Hong Kong and Macao onto the list.
 * Economy of China (with the note at the top stating the article is about economy of mainland China) was moved to Economy of the People's Republic of China at 01:03, 2 Apr 2005 by SchmuckyTheCat. Huaiwei added (and SchmuckyTheCat slightly revised a bit after that) the economies of Hong Kong and Macao.

Changing the content from "mainland China" to "China" or "PRC"

 * Economy of Asia
 * Pacific Rim
 * List of countries and territories by current account balance
 * List of countries and territories by reserves of foreign exchange and gold
 * List of companies in the People's Republic of China (moved from list of companies in mainland China at 16:19, Apr 2, 2005 by SchmuckyTheCat)
 * Economy of Germany
 * Economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
 * Walnut, California
 * San Gabriel, California
 * Chinatown in Latin America
 * Economy of Togo
 * Economy of Sudan
 * Economy of Seychelles
 * Economy of South Korea
 * Economy of Myanmar
 * Economy of Mauritius
 * Economy of Laos

Moving articles between categories

 * Special economic zone of the People's Republic of China (from category:Mainland China to category:People's Republic of China, and from category:Economy of mainland China to category:Economy of the People's Republic of China)
 * Chinese ecnomic reform (from category:Mainland China to category:People's Republic of China, and from category:Economy of mainland China to category:Economy of the People's Republic of China)
 * Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (from category:Economy of mainland China to category:Economy of the People's Republic of China)
 * List of companies in the People's Republic of China (moved from category:Companies of mainland China to category:Companies of the People's Republic of China)

Changing the content from "mainland China" to "China" or "PRC"

 * List of collages and universities by country (took off the words "mainland China")
 * East China Sea (effectively implying Taiwan not part of China)

Re: Motion to close
Neutrality recently proposed this: Given that this is generally a content matter and the dispute seems to have died down in recent weeks, I move to close. I'm not sure what a motion to close entails, but I'm hoping the committee will issue some findings before dismissing this case. I also strongly disagree with the statement that this is purely a content matter and the suggestion that the content debate has been resolved.

Granted, there are disputes about content going on that the ArbCom is not expected to get involved in. However, this case is in fact (at least partly) about policy: Do the naming conventions, for example, mean anything? Are they policy? Can they be enforced, and, if so, how? Does the creation of a large number of polls constitute a disruption of WP as alleged in the complaint? Etc. Those are clearly not content issues, they merely were sparked by an underlying content debate.

That debate has not "died down in recent weeks". Rather, it was unilaterally abandoned by User:Instantnood while this case is pending. As outlined above on this talk page, it would set a rather worrying precedent if a user could be forced to abstain from an ongoing debate by initiating an arbitration request against him, while others carry on what they were doing unchanged. The lull in the debate is just that, a temporary interruption for the sake of the arbitration case. Dismissing the case by saying that the debate has gone away will likely not solve anything. If the case were to be dismissed without any findings or actions taken, the debate could easily flare up again. We could be stuck in another infinite cycle: debate rages, arbitration is requested, dispute is put on halt by reasonable parties, case is dismissed because there seemingly is no dispute, parties start to engage in dispute again; rinse and repeat. This could be avoided if the ArbCom were to make explicit what lessons should be learned from this episode. --MarkSweep 17:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also, and for completely different reasons than MarkSweep, disagree that this had anything to do with content. I'd also note that in the evidence page, I put forth a few idea towards curbing the behavioral issues behind this RfAr that preserve everyone's ability to edit. SchmuckyTheCat 04:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Relief
(I added this a long time ago in the evidence where it was probably the wrong place for it. It's still acceptable, I don't want punitive relief - just something that steers this guy towards constructive editing.)

I've always said, and believed, that Instantnood attempts to make valid contributions and believes in the success of wikipedia. I hope these restrictions encourage positive contributions rather than be outright bans or blocks.


 * 1)  Instantnood is prohibited from creating, renaming; or proposing to create or rename, anything with the word "China" in the title.
 * 2)  Instantnood is prohibited from changing the link target of any article, category, template, etc that has the word "China" in it.
 * 3)  Any change that might change the meaning of an edit is not minor. Instantnood is only allowed to mark corrections to typos as minor edits.
 * 4)  Instantnood is allowed one revert per change to an article.
 * 5)  Talk pages are not a forum.  Instantnood is allowed a single statement for or against any proposed change. For each response made to his original statement, he is allowed a single response/rebuttal. As a response to someone elses comments, he is allowed a single response.
 * 6)  Any new category created by Instantnood needs at least five articles to place in it, at least two of those articles must not be stubs.
 * 7)  For every five stub articles created by Instantnood, or edits to existing stubs of less than 100 words, Instantnood must write at least two hundred words to another article.