Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 2/Proposed decision

Proposed Relief
Pulled from the last case: (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.

SchmuckyTheCat 1 July 2005 00:12 (UTC)
 * 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.

In which Snowspinner sputters aimlessly
ONE POLL A WEEK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Snowspinner 21:34, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Proposed finding of fact: Instantnood's use of "Mainland China"
This currently says:


 * sometimes insists on using the phrase "Mainland China" in contexts which seem incongruent with the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China.

I don't understand how the diff would back up that claim. In fact, I'm not even sure the claim is true. What's at the core of the controversy is, among other things, the fact that the PRC operates openly under the "One Country, Two (or more) Systems" formula. This means that the Special Administrative Regions have their own economic, legal, and political systems that don't neatly fit into how the rest of the country operates. For the list of cities in the People's Republic of China there are thus two possible ways of organizing the list: (mostly) flat, essentially listing all cities in alphabetical order; and structured (as is currently the case), replicating the administrative hierarchy of the PRC into provinces, province-level and prefecture-level cities, SARs, etc. Instantnood is usually pushing (I won't comment on whether this is justified in all instances) for a clear distinction between the SARs (Hong Kong and Macau) and the other parts of the PRC. In this case, since the list is structured, the crucial point is that the SARs have their own internal administrative hiearchies which don't match the rest of the PRC. Because "rest of the PRC" is not a very useful term, the phrase "mainland China" is used in this context to refer to all of the PRC except Hong Kong and Macau (some people, e.g. SchmuckyTheCat, have disputed that usage). I don't think it implies anything at all about sovereignty, it is presumably only intended to reflect the implications of "One Country, Two Systems" that the PRC officially operates under (which, one might argue, does mean that Beijing does not have full sovereignty over Hong Kong for all practical purposes). --MarkSweep &#x270D; 20:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * What's wrong is that both Hong Kong and Macau are cities in the PRC: just as Washington DC is a city within the United States despite having a different system of government. Fred Bauder 21:04, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The People's Republic of China has, according to Article 30 of its constitution, a hierachy of administrative division applied to the entirety of its territories except the special administrative regions. Given that this list is compiled according to the definition of "city" within the administrative division structure of the PRC, Hong Kong and Macao, or any part of Hong Kong or Macao, are not cities. Furthermore, both Hong Kong and Macao do not officially define themselves to be cities, nor any part of themselves cities (Macao used to have councils and assemblies for its two concelhos tho). A possible way to compile this list is to have a section within this article specifically for mainland China, another way is to change the title . &mdash; Instantnood 07:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It is rather obvious that both are cities. Fred Bauder 13:15, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It depends on which definition of city is the article referring to. City may mean any urban place, city centre, city proper, a metropolitan area, a unit granted a city charter (like in the UK and Malaysia), or a division unit. If it's referring to city as a unit of administrative division, Hong Kong and Macao are not cities. Hong Kong and Macao don't contain any city within itself, unlike the District of Columbia did before 1871 (see also Washington County). The entirety of Hong Kong or Macao is not a city, as the City of Washington and the District of Columbia after 1871 do, either. Although both special adminsitrative regions are small and urbanised, it is possible for a special administrative region to contain several cities and counties. &mdash; Instantnood 14:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC) (modified 12:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC))

Concurring with MarkSweep, I really don't see how Instanthood's edit is "incongruent with the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China." A city in Chinese is called 市. HK and MO are not "cities" (市), but "regions" (區). More specifically, they are "special administrative regions" (特別行政區). There is no ambiguity here, at least not in Chinese, between a city and a region. Who is calling HK and MO "cities" in Chinese? It's even seldom done in English, especially after the handovers. --Jiang 09:49, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This is the English Wikipedia. In English Hong Kong is a city. It may also be an administrative unit as the District of Columbia is. A label cannot change the essential nature of a thing. Fred Bauder 13:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Partly agree.. and that was the reason why I said it depends on which of the meanings of city are you referring to. If city means an administrative unit or status/charter, London is not a city, but City of Westminster and City of London are. If city means any metropolitan areas, then London is a city. (see also Greater London) For the case of the District of Columbia, the city of Washington was initially one of the components, but after 1871 the remaining components of the District not retroceded were annexed by the city, the entirety of the District became part of the city, i.e. city and the District overlaps. Hong Kong does not define the entirely of itself as such.  As for the list of cities in the PRC, the entire list follow the same definitions, that is, a type of  administrative division applied to the entirety of the PRC  except Hong Kong and Macao. Unlike the situation of the US (or other federal states) where the definition of city as an administrative unit varies slightly from states to states, in the case of PRC (and many other unitary states) it's uniform. &mdash; Instantnood 15:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Should a link to this section of the talk page be provided on the proposed finding of fact section? Arbitrators who are voting may not be aware of the exchange here. &mdash; Instantnood 05:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * A link has been added. &mdash; Instantnood 15:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * In English, HK is more commonly a "territory" than a "city". The term is antiquated, dating back to the period of British rule. There is no need for wikipedia to further this mistranslation. When we speak of a use "incongruent with the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China", I think not labelling HK a city is not so. You will not be seeing the mainland-based press or the PRC government ever calling HK a city. In fact, it will be "incongruent with the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China" to be labelling HK a city when the government does not do so. --Jiang 00:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I doubt the specific finding we are talking about is that significant. I'll think about modifying it. However, the edit warring is significant. What's causing that? Fred Bauder 00:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it's extremely signifigant. It's the heart of everything and still ongoing. Instantnood wants to present Hong Kong as independent of the PRC. Here's a recent one: Start at this link (mine) and move forward two or three edits.  I chose to format China the same as the already existing breakdowns for the UK and the US, with states, territories, etc as subsections.  'Nood reverts it, going so far to disclaim in the text that China is only for the mainland. Is this kind of editing the point of this proposed finding? SchmuckyTheCat 04:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes my preference is to present Hong Kong and Macao with their own sections on lists by country like the list of IMAX venues, but I don't modify existing lists and articles according to my preference as SchmuckyTheCat does. Presenting them with their own sections is far from implying they're sovereign states on their own. SchmuckyTheCat's way is, on the contrary, implying that Hong Kong and Macao are ordinary subnational entities. &mdash; Instantnood 06:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * (response to Fred Bauer) The urbanised area of Hong Kong is concentrated in a few locations, the rest is either rural or natural reserves. This is why it is often called a territory (in the earlier days colony was more common tho). This usage is followed by English-language newspapers in Hong Kong. If we look into maps of Hong Kong we can tell it's not that contiguous comparing to many other cities. It's perfectly alright to use a lose definition of the word city, but we have to make sure it's not confusing or misleading. &mdash; Instantnood 06:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Enforcement of bans
I'm concerned about the enforcement proposals here: "This means that any administrator, in the exercise of their judgement for reasonable cause, documented in a section of this decision, may ban them from any article which relates to China which they disrupt by inappropriate editing."

This gives all power, without mechanisms for review or veto, to a single administrator. There is no provision for them to be unbanned once they are banned. When there is a disagreement of what constitutes "inappropriate editing", the provision here is biased towards declaring "inappropriate editing" and banning. Why give so much power to any one administrator? I thought admins weren't supposed to be making editorial decisions. In the very least, there should be a quorum of admins to ban, or a way for the decision of any one administrator to be reversed under sufficient opposition.--Jiang 09:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Discussion and all other aspects of dispute resolution may be directed toward an administrator who bans under this provision. So a single administrator must have reasonable cause and must document the reasons for the ban. It is intended to be a summary procedure both for ease of enforcement and to encourage folks to settle disputes rather than have them imposed by the Arbitration Committee. Fred Bauder 13:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Another comment on polls
I'm really not sure anyone ever needs to post a poll a week on a topic. Snowspinner 02:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Remedies applied only to articles?
As the disputes involved in this case explicitly include categories, and have recently spread to include the stub namespace, would the arbcom consider broadening article-related provisions to category-pages and templates, too?


 * The decision includes everything whether it is technically an article or not. Fred Bauder 13:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Remedies 4, 5 and 6 are phrased specifically in terms of articles. If "all non-talk pages" was intended, or otherwise including category pages, surely this should be put more explicitly.  Alai 16:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, remedies 5 & 6 appear to mandate that Instantnood be informed if either of the other two are barred from an article under the terms of their probation, which I assume is a cut-and-paste error. Alai 05:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * They need only be notified of a ban on themselves. Fred Bauder 13:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I wasn't suggesting otherwise, I was referring to a paste-up error, subsequently fixed by Kelly Martin (for which thanks). Alai 16:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)