Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden

Note from uninvolved party
It should be noted that User:Arthur Ellis was the subject of Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella, which has since banned him from editing Warren Kinsella or any articles about Canadian politics - including therefore Rachel Marsden - and also bars him from using socks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morwen (talk • contribs)

Note from an uninvolved party
Today (Sept. 20), Mark Bourrie's www.ottawawatch.blogspot.com site was hacked and the arbcom decision re: Warren Kinsella was linked to it in an attack against Dr. Bourrie. Something needs to be done by Wikipedia to stop dragging Wikipedia into this troll feud.142.78.190.137 15:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Thatcher131
Ellis is banned from editing Rachel Marsden, including the talk page. However, if he (and Marsden) have legitimate BLP concerns, there should be some means of addressing them. Note however that on September 14, Ellis filed notifications to the parties here of a mediation, rather than arbitration (he seems to have used the wrong template, and possibly been confused about the nature of the two processes, as no RFM has actually been filed). Arbitration seems premature; a content RFC, third opinion, or mediation seems in order first. Thatcher131 17:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, its not listed on the main RFM page. Thatcher131 22:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:Tom harrison
Knowing nothing about Marsden before this, I read the article. Based only on our article, a casual reader would have to conclude she is either an insane lying psycho stalker, or that our article is written by people who think she is, and have worked hard to collect and maintain material to prove it. I think it might be worth looking into how the article got that way. Tom Harrison Talk 17:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Arthur Ellis blocked
I blocked Arthur Ellis for 12 hours for violating his previous arbitration ban as explained on Requests_for_arbitration/Warren_Kinsella. Thatcher131 19:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarification from December 2006
Both the Rachel Marsden and Marsden-Donnelly harassment case articles have been deleted by administrators in the last day (and protected to prevent re-creatin). Some editors have argued that references to Marsden's past controversies are inappropriate for the article.

The Marsden RfA determined that "Articles which relate to Rachel Marsden, may, when they violate Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, be reduced to a stub by any user or deleted, together with their talk pages, by any administrator. Removal of poorly sourced negative information or of blocks of grossly unbalanced negative material is not subject to the three revert rule. Such material may be removed without limit". It also ruled that the Marsden and Marsden-Donnelly articles, in their existing state, were in violation of BLP.

Questions: (i) Do references to Marsden's past controversies inherently violate BLP, or would a fair and neutral overview be permitted? (ii) Is page deletion an appropriate remedy to this situation? CJCurrie 06:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

More questions: (iii) Interpretation of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons is often a matter of debate. May speedy deletions of Marsden-related articles be overturned through the usual channel of Deletion Review? (iv) Are we supposed to delete based solely on whether the current version of a page violates WP:BLP, or may we delete based on the existence of previous versions that have violated WP:BLP? Kla'quot 06:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC) (v) Why didn't Arbcom go ahead and delete the articles themselves as soon as the case closed? Kla'quot 07:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Our ultimate goal is an NPOV article on Masden and her controversies. This could be achieved by deleting the existing content and starting work on a new version, or it could be done by refining the existing pages. The ArbCom made no firm assertion of what path is the better one. However, deleting the page and protecting it against all attempts at recreation is certainly not going to help us achieve the desired goal. - SimonP 14:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Protection would only be appropriate if anonymous users were trying to reinstate an unacceptable article. Fred Bauder 22:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Kla'quot 03:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for clarification on undeleted Marsden-Donnelly harassment case
Marsden-Donnelly harassment case has been undeleted after a DRV here. Rachel Marsden remains a stub. Given that the Arbcom found regarding the Rachel Marsden articles that it was "Better nothing than a hatchet job" and that the interpretation of WP:BLP which resulted in the previous state of affairs was "liberal" to the point that two named editors were "expected to conform to WP:BLP rather than the liberal interpretation they have applied", does the Arbcom consider it acceptable due weight that we have over 1,000 words on an incident involving Rachel Marsden before she achieved personal notability as a journalist and commentator (with a further 1,000 words on the incident cut after restoration but remaining in the history to be put back in at any time), and less than 200 words on the rest of her life? --Sam Blanning(talk) 15:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I second this. It disturbs me that the coverage of this case is almost exclusively sensationalist rather than scholarly.  It's not a test case, and if it weren't for the political agenda of attacking the subject it would possibly merit a short paragraph in a generic article on university administration procedures. Guy (Help!) 16:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the framing in the question, which starts from the assumption that this controversy is primarily an incident in RM's life. Our regular editors of Canadian topics seem to be of a clear consensus that the notability of the controversy is independent of what later happend in RM's life, and it would be notable even if she had vanished from the public eye thereafter.  Some have, though I don't opine on whether the group would agree, even gone so far as to describe RM as a figure of dubious independent notability in a controverst on unquestionable notability, and thus would frame the question more in the form "Is it worth having a stub on a figure of no great notability if it prevents coverage of an indicident that of unquestionable notability."  My personal opinion is that both framings are important ways to look at the question, and neither framing is correct in the absence of the other.  GRBerry 01:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * GRBerry's comment is a good one, and it explains much of the feeling I had that I am not only in a different country from the other camp, but in another universe as well. I had no idea that Rachel Marsden was involved in politics or journalism before the Arbcom case began and I started following it. I only recognized the name from the SFU fiasco. Kla'quot 04:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sam and Guy, and I'm concerned that GRBerry overrode the deletion review, in which most of those commenting wanted to keep the article deleted. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I missed the vote, so let me support Sam's sentiment here. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The DRV close included relisting at AFD. If deleting is clearly correct, why is nobody bothering to contribute to the AFD? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GRBerry (talk • contribs)
 * Clearly, some sort of clarification is needed. However, if people on different sides of this ask questions separately, they are likely to be loaded ones.  Perhaps one of the ArbCom members or one of the more experienced MedCab mediators who has not participated in the ongoing conflict over Wikipedia's coverage of Rachel Marsden could work with each side to develop a short list of questions to be posed to ArbCom. The two sides seem to have different interpretations of how to apply the remedies in its decision. I don't think it's fair to say GRBerry "overrode" deletion review.  Endorse or overturn requires consensus, not merely a majority.  The most that could be said is that he should have waited the full ten days before sending to AfD, although it's doubtful that we could have attained consensus even after that amount of time. JChap2007 18:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * GRBerry's DRV closure was perfectly proper. The established precedent is that speedy deletions of an article after a keep consensus are considered de-facto challenges to the consensus, so the prior consensus is either upheld or overturned based on the response at DRV. The standard for overturning a previous keep decision and deleting the article outright usually requires near-unanimity, which was clearly not given here. The protocol for such cases is to pass them back to the original deletion forum. ~ trialsanderrors 04:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Also to correct Sam Blanning's numbers, the article is currently at 500 words. The version that was discussed at AfD and DRV was 1,100 words long. ~ trialsanderrors 07:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Attempt at partial summary. We appear to have two opposing viewpoints here, held in good faith by established users. One, which I'll call Sam's though held more broadly, is that MDHC is primarily an alternate article whose primary purpose is to disparage a marginally notable figure, Rachel Marsden, i.e. that the notability of MDHC is weak since it only derives from notability of Marsden herself. We have Kla'quot's (and others') viewpoint, that the MDHC article documents an event, notable on its own, which happens to involve a marginally notable figure. Certain people have been moving aggressively but in good faith to short circuit usual process in the firm belief that their viewpoint is correct. End of summary, personal views follow. Doubtless both sides can marshall press articles to support their view (and thus I am sure there is a right answer per WP:V and WP:BLP). By pure chance the topic came up at a small dinner I was at 2 days ago with 4 junior Canadian academics active in the legal and social sciences field. I asked whether they remembered the Marsden-Donnelly case, and none of the four recalled it. I mentioned it was the one at SFU with the swim coach, and 3 of the 4 remembered then and one volunteered that "it comes up in discussions once in a while". I said that I hadn't known one of the actors (Marsden) was a political commentator and all four expressed surprise at that fact. This informal bit of OR on my part makes me support the Kla'quot viewpoint. Martinp 14:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Addendum: The article has been substantially rewritten and retitled Simon Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy. This change in focus satisfies most of my reservations about it.  I am still not convinced it deserves an article of its own, rather than a para in a larger article, but at least it is now much more a critique of the University's processes and does not appear to either support or denigrate either party. Guy (Help!) 17:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Rachel Marsden (May 2022)

 * Original discussion

Enacted - Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 14:26, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

 * Support
 * 1) Izno (talk) 04:37, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 2) Reasonable argument made to rescind this. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 3) BDD (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 4) I fully support our continued cleanup of obsolete remedies CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 5) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 6) WormTT(talk) 10:12, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 7) Barkeep49 (talk) 10:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 8)   Maxim (talk)   12:05, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 9) Beeblebrox (talk) 19:36, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 10) KevinL ( aka L235 · t · c) 23:26, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose


 * Abstain


 * Arbitrator discussion
 * Like the just-resolved St. Christopher, I found a talk page notice for this while wikignoming (since removed). Unlike that remedy, this one is not quite a proto-DS, but would certainly fall under BLPDS today if arbitration enforcement were needed. Even so, I think the community's understanding of WP:BLP enforcement is also more rigorous. By today's community and committee standards, the part of the remedy allowing arbitrary full deletion of the pages of interest would be atypical, at best. This remedy appears in essence to be obsolete and should no longer be on the books accordingly. --Izno (talk) 04:37, 8 May 2022 (UTC)