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Case name Closed
Venezuelan politics 25 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Falun Gong none (orig. case) 1 August 2020
Amendment request: Climate change Motion (orig. case) 3 August 2020
Amendment request: Genetically modified organisms Motion (orig. case) 3 August 2020
Amendment request: Unban decision none none 6 August 2020

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for clarification and amendment

Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.

  • Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
  • Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).

To file a clarification or amendment request: (you must use this format!)

  1. Choose one of the following options and open the page in a new tab or window:
  2. Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
  3. If your request will affect or involve other users (including any users you have named as parties), you must notify these editors of your submission; you can use {{subst:Arbitration CA notice|SECTIONTITLE}} to do this.
  4. Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
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Amendment request: Falun Gong

Initiated by Marvin 2009 at 05:27, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Falun Gong arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Information about amendment request

Statement by Marvin 2009

Can an editor who has been under a topic ban use a sock puppet to report another editor to arbitration enforcement? Clearly not. And if the editor do so before the sock puppetry is uncovered, should any sanction arising from his or her complaint be nullified, after the sock puppetry is uncovered?

By the end of June, I was informed for an indefinite topic ban from Falun Gong in response to PatCheng's arbitration enforcement request. On July 27, both PatCheng and PCPP were blocked, as PatCheng has been confirmed to be a sock puppet of PCPP who has been topic banned on Falun Gong since Nov 2011. I am requesting a clarification that whether the topic ban enforced on me due to PatCheng's AE request should be nullified? Thanks. Precious Stone (Marvin 2009) 05:27, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Tantusar: In response to PatCheng's complaint, yes, in the beginning one admin was concerned about edit warring and aspersions casting.I replied to the admin right away at that time explaining how each of my altogether 7 edits in June was not edit warring (even not 1RR), and nor did i cast any aspersions in communicating with others. On the contrary, I was the one who was attacked by POV editors. After that, there has been no further response from that admin. Thanks. Precious Stone (Marvin 2009) 13:38, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PatCheng

Statement by PCPP

Statement by Guerillero

You may also want to take a look at

Marvin 2009 has been trying their darnedest to reverse their topic ban; this is the fourth try in a month to reverse their topic ban. I stand by the topic ban and point to the fact that each of the 4 have failed to follow WP:NOTTHEM. Marvin 2009 interacts with dispute resolution as if it was a court or justice system instead of as a system to prevent disruption. The topic ban is from an area that is plagued with edit warring, aspersions, and general intractability. The whole area may need an additional arb case shortly to do another round of site/topic bans and place 30/500 over the topic area --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:02, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newslinger

See the following discussions for context:

This amendment request is Marvin 2009's third appeal of their topic ban this week. — Newslinger talk 09:46, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tantusar

That PatCheng was a sockpuppet seems to me to be largely irrelevant to whether Marvin 2009 should or should not have received a topic ban. The administrators on the enforcement request found that Marvin was edit warring and casting aspersions. PatCheng's behaviour does not change these findings. Suggest amendment request be denied. Tantusar (talk) 11:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Seraphimblade

I do not see any particular relevance to the fact that the AE complaint was brought by someone later found to be a sockpuppet. Even at that request, the three of us who discussed it did note that the PatCheng account seemed awfully fishy in the way they were behaving, and for that reason (among others) they were sanctioned as well. Marvin 2009's sanction has already been subject to, and upheld by, community review at AN, so I think it is shown to be valid. It is not unusual, at AE, for a filer of a request for sanctions to themselves have engaged in misbehavior too, but that cannot mean we just ignore what they bring up if the concerns are indeed legitimate. It may mean, as in this request, that both parties wind up sanctioned.

That aside, I'll reiterate my concern that there has been a lot of unusual behavior in regards to Falun Gong, including sleeper accounts popping right back to activity the moment a serious dispute starts. I still think that warrants a closer look, and finding the sockpuppetry here makes me think so even more. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:47, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

I think Newyorkbrad is right. Socking to report other users is a high risk strategy, and any report is unlikely to result in sanctions unless the behaviour merits it. Which in this case it seems to have done. Marvin was edit-warring to advance a POV, and his only excuse was "but look at all this bias". He has under 5,400 edits, over 11 years, and FG topics dominate. I don't think he's here to be part of the wider project. Guy (help!) 21:50, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Falun Gong: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • This request seeks to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. I have therefore reformatted this request as an amendment request for the original case and named the administrator who imposed the sanction as a party. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 05:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Falun Gong: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • This would be akin to fruit of the poisonous tree if this were a judicial system. Since it's not, overturning an AE topic ban for that reason alone is not required (and from what I understand, the appeal has already been declined for other reasons). Looking at it another way: If a non-topic banned party had requested the enforcement, would it still have been applied? Since the sockpuppetry was not known to the placing administrator at the time, the answer seems to be yes. –xenotalk 16:42, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • For convenience, link to the topic-ban discussion is here. My approach is similar to Xeno's (and continuing the American legal metaphor for a moment, the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine has its inevitable discovery exception). We obviously don't want people creating or using sockpuppets in edit-wars or to get people sanctioned at AE (or for any other reason), and if the editor's problematic behavior was largely provoked by the since-revealed sock, that fact might be relevant to a sanction decision. But if an editor is behaving so poorly in a DS area that he or she would have been brought to AE by someone else in any event, then it would be pointless bureaucracy to vacate the existing sanction and wait for another AE complaint to be filed with the same result. Pinging the other admins who participated in the AE discussion (@JzG and Seraphimblade:) in case they have any thoughts to share. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Broadly agree with the above remarks. The topic ban was imposed based on the sanctioned editors behavior, who did the reporting doesn't change that, this is a website, not a court. The best way forward if you want a topic ban rescinded is to completely ignore said topic for a prolonged period while making positive contributions elsewhere. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed with Xeno. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with all the above. Katietalk 20:28, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also agree with those who commented above. There is no indication that the reporting user being a sock in any way influenced the sanction (as NYB points out), so overturning it just because of that seems to be bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. Regards SoWhy 07:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Climate change

Initiated by Hipocrite at 12:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Climate change arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Hipocrite topic-banned


List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request



Information about amendment request
  • Hipocrite topic-banned
  • Termination


Statement by Hipocrite

I have successfully not edited this website for over 1 year at this point, and have, to first order, not edited for over 4 years. I would like this stain removed from my record going forward. I have no present intention to edit this website, but if I were to edit again, I would not, in the future, be nearly as combative with people I disagreed with - instead relying on the wisdom of crowds, as opposed to feeling sole ownership to do the right thing. I have successfully demonstrated this by not editing in large bulk, for the past many years. Over the past 10 years, I have become 10 years more mature and realised that this stuff is mostly meaningless anyway. The one block I received as a result of this sanction was determined to be in error - [1]. I will respond to any direct questions anyone has for me, but otherwise, leave it in your good judgement. Hipocrite (talk) 12:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SoWhy: The evidence presented of my not editing for years demonstrates my ability to not get involved and/or walk away from conflict, which was the key failure I believe I needed to fix a decade ago. While I currently have no intention of editing, that might change - however, I'm not very excited to edit with an albatross around my neck. You can review my edits post the case for 5+ years of semi-active participation - I am in no way saying that I did not edit at all - noting that in those 5 years I was not blocked once, while never requesting this restriction be modified. Hipocrite (talk)
@Joe Roe: I don't mean to be smarmy or hypocritical, but you'd review the case if I merely said "I'd like to edit climate change articles again?" Can do. "I'd like to edit climate change articles again, if that's the only way I can get this topic ban lifted." I will pledge to make 15 good non-controversial edits to climate change articles as soon as the topic ban is lifted - here's the first edit - in the "Discovery" section of Global_warming, the first reference to Edme Mariotte refers to them only by Mariotte. Alternatively, the reference to Svante Arrhenius uses his full name. I would attempt to normalise this to full name first time, last name future times unless there's a failure to be clear (S. Arrhenius if there's also an A. Arrhenius). If there's push back, I'd try to go the other way. If there's further pushback, I'd just leave it in the non-normalised state it's in. I continue to have no intention to get in any arguments about Climate Change, regardless of the abject wrongness of anyone else. Best wishes. Hipocrite (talk) 10:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Climate change: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Climate change: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • If you have not edited at all, what evidence should we have to consider that the topic ban is no longer necessary? Also, if you have no intention of further editing, what would be the point of formally removing a remedy? In general, I don't think there is a point to repeal a remedy for editors who are not interested in returning to editing and in this case in particular the very fact that editing ceased means there is no evidence to judge whether the remedy is still required. Regards SoWhy 12:56, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, I don't know – that case was in 2010, and while there's certainly not a lot of recent editing, Hipocrite does have a track record for us to view. I'd like to hear from some others, but I'd be willing to consider vacating it. Katietalk 15:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pretty much what Katie said, I'm open to the idea but would like to hear a bit more before making any decision. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not particularly interested in entertaining an appeal from someone for whom the point is some sort of "honor". Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 20:03, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless something unexpected is brought to our attention soon, I would grant the request. Ten years is a long time under any circumstances and certainly with respect to this topic-area. (By way of disclosure, although it's not especially relevant now, I was the only 2010 arbitrator who thought the sanction was probably too severe in the first place.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:10, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support vacating the old remedy absent evidence it remains necessary. –xenotalk 17:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you don't even intend to return to editing, isn't this a bit of a waste of time? You can not edit just as effectively with a topic ban than without. I think we should dismiss this request for now and look at it again if/when Hipocrite actually wants to edit climate change-related articles. – Joe (talk) 08:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The appeal has shown that the restriction is no longer necessary, and while the net effect to the encyclopedia seems the same regardless of whether the restriction is active or not, it remains that the continued restriction does bother the appellant, and thus I see a convincing case to remove it. Maxim(talk) 12:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Motion: Climate Change (Hipocrite)

The restriction imposed on Hipocrite (talk · contribs) by Remedy 14 of the Climate change case ("Hypocrite topic-banned") is hereby lifted.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 1 arbitrator abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support
  1. As no longer necessary. –xenotalk 12:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Per my comment above. Maxim(talk) 18:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose


Abstain
  1. Per my and SoWhy's comments above. – Joe (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Genetically modified organisms

Initiated by ProcrastinatingReader at 21:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
Genetically modified organisms arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms#1RR_imposed


List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request



Information about amendment request
  • That the scope of the 1RR remedy be changed to "genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed"


Statement by ProcrastinatingReader

Apologies in advance for the upcoming wikilawyering. In the GMO case, in 2015, the Committee authorised DS and 1RR with the same scope, "all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, agricultural biotechnology, and agricultural chemicals, broadly construed". That was amended in this motion, as a result of a clarification request, and the scope was narrowed to "all pages relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed." That motion only changed the scope for the DS; the 1RR remedy retains the old scope. I suppose if one wanted to wikilawyer this, the 1RR remedy currently has a broader scope than the DS itself. I'm assuming that this was an oversight, rather than intentional?

Statement by Kingofaces43

I was part of drafting both the original ArbCom and the clarification request language on the non-arb editor/subject matter expert side of things. To clarify for ProcrastinatingReader, the second motion did not functionally narrow the DS. It just clarified that yes, agricultural companies related to the locus of the dispute, genetically modified organisms and/or pesticides, were included in the DS. There was no intended change in scope, just tweaking the wording to prevent wikilawyering on scope that as going on at the time. "Agricultural biotechnology" that was also dropped and just treated as being lumped in with GMO in terms of meaning assuming broadly construed would handle the rest. "Commercially produced agricultural chemicals" was basically added to avoid a really WP:BEANS situation of someone saying water was covered by the DS. In short, a lot of care went into clarification on precise wording as opposed to scope changes.

I'd also be curious where ProcrastinatingReader came across this in terms of if there's an area that needs to be looked at further where this became an actual issue, or if they're just being preemptive. I haven't seen anything pop up on my watchlist, so I'll definitely be glad if there isn't a fire to put out.

Functionally, there's no real difference between the two right now since the motion clarifies that the companies are part of the "broadly construed" language of the original, but that also means there's no harm in updating the 1RR language to match the motion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Genetically modified organisms: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Genetically modified organisms: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • On an initial reading the request seems logical, but awaiting additional statements. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absent arguments against doing so, harmonizing the two seems appropriate to eliminate confusion. DGG: you voted on that 2015 amendment. –xenotalk 17:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • no objection either. DGG ( talk ) 02:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds sensible. I've proposed a motion below. – Joe (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Genetically modified organisms: motion

Remedy 2 ("1RR imposed") of Genetically modified organisms is amended to read as follows:

Editors are prohibited from making more than one revert per page per day on any page relating to genetically modified organisms, commercially produced agricultural chemicals and the companies that produce them, broadly construed and subject to the usual exemptions.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support
  1. As proposer. – Joe (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The reason for the amendment is to match the scope of 1RR with the scope of the discretionary sanctions covering the same subject area. –xenotalk 12:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Per the request above and per Xeno. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Per above. Regards SoWhy 19:30, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Abstain

Amendment request: Unban decision

Initiated by North8000 at 14:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=756686514#Motion_regarding_North8000
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=756686514#Motion_regarding_North8000


List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request



Information about amendment request
  • Remove all restrictions. I believe that the older case restrictions were replaced by incorporation into this, but if not, then them too.


Statement by North8000

Request for removal of older Arbcom-placed restrictions.

I have topic bans on tea party movement, gun control, the homophobia article, and post 1932 american politics and a limitation to one account. Most of my restrictions originated in the 2013 tea party movement 2014 gun control cases and the newest was placed in 2016 as a sort of “add on” condition when I came back. All were appealable starting in mid-2017 but I’m just first asking now. I learned and wiki-evolved an immense amount from the entire process.

Since then (2016) I’ve been active in Wikipedia in wide ranging areas with an additional 12,000+ edits (now 53,000+ total) in article creation & improvement, GA reviews, helping folks out, and very active at NPP / new article curation, policy and guideline page discussions and a range of other areas which provide a diverse “proving out”. . This has all been with zero issues and zero drama of any type. This has not been due to any of the restrictions, it’s just how I roll throughout that period and now. I’m requesting that you remove of all of the restrictions to give me a clean slate. The “clean slate” aspect is more important to me than any restrictions in particular. Thanks for your consideration and of course I'd be happy to answer any questions.North8000 (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've treated libertarianism articles as political science, not American politics. That was not an edit war, and Davide King and I respect and compliment each other and value each other's presence and he has thanked me I'd estimate 40 times for my edits. The extraction and characterization of this as something else says much.North8000 (talk) 19:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

The committee should reject vacating North8000's topic ban on Homophobia. Although it was eight years ago, his contributions there were entirely disruptive and wasted a great deal of editor's time.[2][3] There is no reason to believe that North8000 has some unique perspective or skill that will benefit this fully developed article. The risk greatly outweighs any potential reward.

At this point, I have no opinion about whether the Tea Party topic ban should remain. Regarding the gun control and post 1932 American Politics, I can only say that that topic area has settled down quite a bit in the past few years as a direct result of having topic banned several editors and imposing editing restrictions on several articles. I may have more to add later. - MrX 🖋 17:44, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Relatively recent edit warring on an American politics article does not help the case:[4]
  • These six edits were violations of the gun control topic ban: [5]; Warning:[6]. (To my knowledge, North8000 never responded.) - MrX 🖋 18:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Springee

I have only limited engagement with North8000 but I've seen no issues between them and other editors. The tbans are 8 years old, if they haven't caused trouble since I think its safe to assume they have learned better ways to deal with editorial disagreements. If problems return it's not like the tban's can't be reinstated. In cases like this we should always err on the side of assuming good faith. Springee (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

I haven't much knowledge of the other topic-bans so I'm not going to opine about them, but I would definitely oppose lifting the topic ban on Homophobia, on which North8000's 266 talk page posts wasted vast amounts of other editors' time arguing for the article to be completely re-written to include a WP:FRINGE definition of homophobia (that using the word which includes -phobia denigrates opposition to homosexuality), and accused other editors of being "activists" [7]. He eventually exhausted everyone's patience (as an example, try this conversation. It's one article, there are 6m+ others. Black Kite (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Unban decision: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Unban decision: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Awaiting additional statements; generally amenable to lifting old restrictions if it can be demonstrated they are no longer necessary. –xenotalk 14:58, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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