Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Hersfold (Talk) & Elen of the Roads (Talk)

The purpose of the workshop is for the parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee to post proposed components of the final decisions for review and comment. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions, which are the four types of proposals that can be included in the final decision. The workshop also includes a section (at the page-bottom) for analysis of the /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

Caution within FG articles

1) I'd like to suggest that we consider imposing a temporary injunction on the Falun Gong namespace pending the outcome of this case. Perhaps something to the effect that editors should exercise caution with major or potentially contentious changes, and seek to discuss them on talk pages first? This seems consistent with the editing policy. Homunculus (duihua) 03:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Sorry, I didn't realize you'd posted a proposal here until now; I've updated the header for this section so it's a little more obvious by simply glancing at the page. In any event, I don't see that such an injunction would achieve much; as you point out, the editing policy asks editors to discuss such edits first anyway. One hopes also that the simple fact that this case is open would serve as warning enough - an editor, particularly one who is party to this case, that engages in disruptive conduct in the Falun Gong topic area would be doing so at their own peril. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 20:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Homunculus: That's what the evidence phase was for. ;-) Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

Hersfold: I would hope so too. That the named parties would be on their best behavior and discuss controversial edits, that is. But I've been disappointed on an almost daily basis. Shall I give examples? Homunculus (duihua) 16:30, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

It actually helps a lot to look how participants behave during the case. Some of them simply can not stop their content conflicts, even during standing arbitration. If so, this is not a good sign. My very best wishes (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although I am virtually certain we are thinking of different people in this regard, I wholeheartedly agree with the above comment. John Carter (talk) 19:55, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Conduct on this page

2) I am quite concerned that this page has devolved significantly and departed from its intended purpose. As is noted in some of the discussions below, some of the parties appear to have quite seriously misrepresented the actions, statements, and conduct of other users for the purpose of trying to have them banned. Other unfounded assertions, exceptional claims, and speculation on other user's motives, affiliations, of beliefs has continued. There also seems to be a bit of a misuse of the process, in that a great deal of new evidence has been added to the page, and in inappropriate venues. I've noticed that some previous arbitration proceedings have invoked special procedures for dealing with this (eg. here), and would like to ask whether it is possible that similar standards be applied here: namely, a "single warning" system for editors who can be shown to be misrepresenting other users in this forum, who make claims or speculative assertions without evidence, etc. Homunculus (duihua) 16:52, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

If you have concerns about a specific individual's conduct, please contact the case clerks either on their talk page or by email at clerks-l

lists.wikimedia.org. The case you refer to is a rare exception rather than the rule, and measures such as that are only taken when issues of privacy or extreme misconduct are expected. Neither is the case here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:23, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

Here are some examples of how the proposer of this injunction violates it himself:

The injunction laments "a bit of a misuse of the process, in that a great deal of new evidence has been added to the page, and in inappropriate venues". Homunculus, however, has surreptitiously bypassed evidence limits by establishing a user subpage for evidence after the evidence phase closed, and linking[1] to it from the workshop.
The injunction lambasts "speculation on other user's motives, affiliations or beliefs".
- Homunculus speculates on a user's beliefs in workshop: "Colipon, I think it's possible that part of the problem is that you find the reliable source literature itself to be problematic"[2]. No diffs were provided to substantiate this serious accusation, and Colipon explicitly denied[3] that H's speculation on his beliefs was correct.
- H makes an edit with the speculative edit summary: "This seems to be the goal, no? Make the "wrong POV" permanently verboten?"[4] and in it writes more deeply insulting speculation on users' motives: "It appears that Colipon's goal is to make what he characterizes as "Falun Gong advocacy" go away forever. Again, to be clear, Colipon has effectively defined as a "Falun Gong advocate" anyone who has a legitimate disagreement with him over content... "Falun Gong advocate" are people who employ academic sources... if they are active on the Falun Gong namespace and do not adhere to the "right" point of view, they are to labelled Falun Gong activists and indefinitely banned". No direct evidence was provided that Colipon wants to ban people of the opposite POV, and Colipon denied[5] that this speculation was correct. This was the second time that H made this speculation; in a separate diff in workshop, H said:[6] "It's seriously extraordinary that you think you can ban someone indefinitely from a broad topic area simply because you don't like what you imagine to be their point of view." (key words of speculation: "you think you can ban... because you don't like... their point of view"). Shrigley (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that my comments followed quite directly as reasonable interpretations of Colipon's own statements in this forum and on AE, but I will take another look through my comments, strike through and rephrase them if that is not so. As to my statement here [7], if Colipon would like me to do so, I can provide a diff showing him expressing this view (in somewhat cruder terms). I won't do this unless Colipon asks me to. Perhaps the other parties involved here will likewise take the initiative to strike through all of their comments which have a) misrepresented other users or their editing histories; b) involved unreasonable speculation, exceptional claims, guilt-by-association, etc. Homunculus (duihua) 22:33, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Shrigley misrepresented me above. He said that I "surreptitiously bypassed evidence limits by establishing a user subpage for evidence after the evidence phase closed." This didn't happen. The history of the page I created in user space shows that it hasn't been edited since June 16—the last day of evidence submissions. Factual misrepresentations of this nature occur throughout this workshop. I have attempted to point them out where I can. Homunculus (duihua) 02:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

@Parties to the case. The more you people struggle on this very page, the more you convince arbitrators that something must be done about you. My very best wishes (talk) 17:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence by PCPP

3) If I understand correctly, PCPP submitted his evidence by email to Arbcom. I think it would be in everyone's best interest to have this Evidence posted on-wiki as a part of the case for the purpose of transparency, excluding any personal information of course. My very best wishes (talk) 11:27, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

My recommendation that PCPP send evidence to us is not an indication that he has done so - to my knowledge, he has not emailed any of the Committee's mailing lists. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:24, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Questions to the parties

Proposed final decision

Proposals by User:Homunculus

Proposed principles

Conduct

1) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, trolling, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.

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Wikipedia is not a battleground

2) Wikipedia is a serious intellectual project. The objective of the project is to build a free, high-quality reference work. Use of the site for political struggle accompanied by harassment of opponents is extremely disruptive and absolutely unacceptable.

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Editing policy

3) Wikipedia relies on a consensus model. When there is a good-faith dispute, editors are expected to participate in the consensus-building process, in lieu of soapboxing, edit warring, or other inappropriate behavior. Editors are strongly encouraged to adhere to editing policy on talking and editing.

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Upholding community standards

4) It is the responsibility of every member of the community to uphold the core pillars of Wikipedia and minimize disruptions, edit warring, or incivility. Editors should take care to apply Wikipedia policies and standards in a fair manner. Users should not defend or reinforce disruptive behavior by others on the basis of shared philosophical or ideological inclinations.

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Comment by parties:

The idea behind this principle is nice, but not all users agree on what is and is not "disruptive behavior". For example, TSTF cites as evidence against me this[8] diff, in which I suggest that PCPP might not be "hounding" you, which is a subjective judgment. Plus, it is difficult to divine editors' "shared philosophical or ideological inclinations"? Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Accusations of impropriety

5) It is unacceptable for an editor to routinely accuse others of misbehavior without reasonable cause in an attempt to besmirch their reputations. The misrepresentation of another editor’s behavior for the purpose of making it appear improper or sanctionable is considered a form of gaming the system. Assertions of improper conduct—including though not limited to claims of sockpuppety, wikilawyering, POV-pushing, or gaming the system—should be made with caution and supported by evidence, rather than offered as insults. Concerns, if they cannot be resolved directly with the other users involved, should be brought up in the appropriate forums with evidence, if at all.

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Comment by parties:

I am not sure who you are accusing of making unsupported accusations? The evidence of both Colipon and Ohconfucius make clear that they've bitten their tongues for a long time and are only now making accusations of POV-pushing; You yourself acknowledge[9] that you've "only very recently been assigned that label" (of activist), and arbitration appears to be "the appropriate forum with evidence". Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote these as general principles. Please do not assume that I am using this forum for the purpose of accusing anyone of anything. Homunculus (duihua) 03:32, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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User space

6) Pages in user space intended to memorialize conflicts or document other editors’ perceived faults without a clear and immediate purpose is considered unproductive, as it may serve to perpetuate a dispute. Longstanding consensus at WP:Miscellany for Deletion is that editors may work up drafts in their userspace for the sole purpose of submitting the material as evidence in arbitration cases. However, after the case closes, the sub-pages should be courtesy-blanked or deleted.

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Comment by parties:

I don't recall any evidence being submitted which explains how user space pages "served to perpetuate a dispute". Was this matter discussed before the arbitration case? Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the parties named in this case maintain multiple pages in user space which appear intended to memorialize conflicts on the Falun Gong namespace, to keep account of other editor's perceived faults, or to make speculative accusations against other users. Some, though not all, of these pages, were linked to on the evidence page. To my knowledge it has not been discussed previously. I hope that answers your question.Homunculus (duihua) 03:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a page that has been in existence since before they (Homunculus and TSTF) became interested in editing Falun Gong on Wikipedia, this complaint comes as a surprise. My 'rant against Falun Gong pages' is exactly that: no more, no less. The page has a prominent disclaimer that says "This page attempts to summarise my continuing travails and evolving turmoil while editing all things Falun Gong. This is just me letting off steam to keep myself sane. Whilst is purpose is to be a historical record of how I feel and what I am/was thinking, I do not make any claims to objectivity here. You are of course very welcome to comment". Asdfg has commented on and replied to my rant, and TSTF would or Homunculus would be equally welcome. Ours is not to reason why they have chosen not to.
As to its contents, there is my rant itself, some comments and other recycled junk from other fora together with important links posted for my easy reference. The existence of this case has shown me the usefulness of same – my link archive has saved me a great deal of precious time. I would also point put that similar rants have become essays now in WPspace – to wit, the highly relevant essays WP:Activist and WP:Civil POV pushing, were created and directly reference the Arab–Palestinien conflict. The only difference is their objective and structured presentation and a lack of diffs. I made no claims to objectivity. As to the subsidiary pages that Homunculus appears to be objecting to, these are not the nefarious 'dirt file' she suggests, but statistics prepared in the context of this case for the purposes of mounting my defense by demonstrating the editing habits of some of the parties. They may expose uncomfortable truths and correlations that certain people might not care to make public. There is nothing new or synthesised about these pages – all the analyses are prepared form publicly available data. I would have prepared these earlier, during AE, had I had the time then. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So first it was censoring critical content in Falun Gong articles, then it was removing negative materials in wider topic space, then scrubbing talk pages to remove comments critical of the state of articles, then trying to limit what is kosher for discussion on this very page, and now apparently even personal opinions from disillusioned editors in userspace must be cleansed with rubbing alcohol because they are unfriendly to Falun Gong activism. What a travesty of a 'principle'. Colipon+(Talk) 15:50, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Complaining about the personal pages of users would seem to violate the principle, derived from WP:NPA and articulated by TSTF, of "focus[ing] on the edits, not the editor".[10] Shrigley (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Colipon, this proposal, which is based on similar principles adopted in previous ArbCom cases, is written with reference to WP:User pages (particularly WP:UP#POLEMIC) and WP:Miscellany for Deletion. I'm not sure it's fair to call it a "travesty."

@ Shrigley, this proposal is not a personal attack.

@ Ohconfucius, you maintain a user space in which you make unreasonable speculations about my personal religious beliefs and affiliations, and engage in a guilt by association tactic to ascribe a variety of undesirable traits that you associate with Falun Gong editors. I believe this is a violation of Wikipedia policies. Your quantitative analysis page also contains unreasonable and offensive speculation and misrepresentation of my motivations for creating or editing certain articles. Homunculus (duihua) 06:55, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Assuming good faith

7) Editors who find that they are unwilling or unable to assume good faith or behave in a professional, cordial manner are encouraged to recuse themselves. Persistent, misplaced accusations of bad faith against other users are demoralizing and counterproductive.

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There must be reasonable limits to the WP:AGF principle, particularly after very consistent patterns of behavior that can be clearly identified as being POV-pushing and advocacy. I quote WP:CRUSH: "The requirement to assume good faith is not an excuse for uncooperative behavior. There is a limit to how long good faith can be extended to editors who are continually shown to be acting in a manner that is detrimental to the growth and improvement of the encyclopedia. Nor is AGF defined as doublespeak for urging all editors to agree with a particular viewpoint and accept any changes that are advocated." Colipon+(Talk) 14:56, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there are naturally limits, and editors should not abuse the AGF clause. A user who has a clear and demonstrable history of behavioral problems, or who has been blocked or banned in the past, might reasonably expect that they are not accorded quite the same level of good faith and credulity as others. Even so, all editors should be treated with dignity, and their ideas and contributions must always be assessed on their individual merits, rather than on the basis of who is making them.

One of the other principles I proposed relates to accusations of impropriety. If an editor displays behavioral problems which cannot be addressed in a constructive manner, then these problems should be raised in the appropriate forum with evidence, if at all.

Non-specific accusations of POV-pushing and advocacy are problematic in that they may be highly subjective. For example, you wrote on the evidence page, "I firmly believe that only activists extremely invested in Falun Gong would push for the inclusion of FRINGE material on FLG lawsuits on articles about Chinese officials." You're referring to this content. WP:FRINGE applies to theories of course; well sourced, notable, and factual information is not fringe. (Ironically, one of the definitions of WP:ACTIVIST is editors who try to remove legitimate material by erroneously claiming it's synthesis, undue, or fringe—all things Colipon did at Talk:Bo Xilai#Falun Gong.) You have defined as an activist anyone who disagreed with you on this content question—including, presumably, these people[11][12][13]. And in this forum, it seems you might be saying that activists are not entitled to good faith (is that right, or did I misread you?). Disagreements on content issues, or divergent points of view, is not a legitimate basis for failing to assume good faith.Homunculus (duihua) 16:36, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't buy that at all. The evidence is so overwhelming on the SPA and POV-push charges, I'll let it speak for itself. As for myself, my record is there for everyone to scrutinize. Unlike your edit history, mine does not have any sort of pattern of being 'pro-' or 'anti-' anything, and I've worked on many controversial articles. ArbCom is welcome to scrutinize what I've written in any article. Colipon+(Talk) 16:50, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Biophys/MVBW: I don't think there was any suggestion that Homunculus or TSTF have been engaged in paid advocacy, just Falun Gong advocacy. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:26, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Biophys/MVBW: Who are the so-called 'pro-Chinese government activists', and what sanctions would you like to see against this, AFAICT hypothetical, class of editor? The real asymmetry is the dearth of same, IMHO. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:36, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Support. Poorly substantiated COI accusations is a serious problem in many cases. Yes, everyone must make every effort to AGF, especially while editing in contentious areas like this one. Unproven personal accusations must be avoided. Speaking about this, Evidence section by Colipon makes a claim that "Homunculus and TSTF are Falun Gong activists". This is serious accusation. But unfortunately, I do not see any real proof that they are members of Falun Gong or engaged in paid advocacy. Yes, they are interested in editing these subjects and may have certain POV, but so is everyone else in many subject areas. Now, let's take a look at AE request by Colipon. First two parts ("Background" and "Homunculus is an SPA") include a lot of personal accusations and links to policies, but exactly zero diffs that can prove anything. That AE request by Colipon is advocacy, or at least it looks like advocacy to me. If anything, this AE statement proves lack of willingness to assume good faith on the part of Colipon. My very best wishes (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Ohconfucius. Then, if you only imply that they have "pro-FG" POV (and other editors have "anti-FG" POV), this is a rather common situation that usually does not require any sanctions with regard to any contributors. Yes, that is what I initially thought after looking at AE request. Therefore, I submitted only evidence about PCPP (who I thought was the only obvious violator). Now I see another problem: one of the sides constantly accuses another side that they are "pro-FG activists" to gain upper hand in content disputes and have their "opponents" sanctioned. However, I did not see any claims about "pro-Chinese government activists". Hence, the asymmetric sanction with regard to "anti-FG" contributors who consistently assume bad faith and accuse another side could be appropriate. My very best wishes (talk) 04:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Users background and neutrality

8) Editors espousing a religious or national background relevant to the topic area are welcome to participate, but must strive to edit from a Neutral Point of View and behave collaboratively and in good faith toward editors with whom they may disagree.

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I fail to see the relevance of the "national background" aspect. Could you explain? Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Religious and national epithets

9) The use of slurs and derogatory references to groups such as religions, social classes or nationalities, is prohibited. It is unacceptable to use an editor's religious or national affiliation (whether real or presumed) as an ad hominem means or dismissing or discrediting their contributions. Fixation or speculation on another editor's off-wikipedia orientations, national or religious background, behaviors or lifestyle is unacceptable. Editors should discuss content, not contributors.

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Comment by parties:

Slurs or derogatory references are of course undesirable, but we haven't seen any clear instances of religious slurring in the evidence. A potential conflict of interest is certainly relevant to judging a user's contributions, but of course the standard prohibitions against harassment apply. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a proposed principle, not a proposed finding of fact. Please do not assume that I have crafted these principles as a means of accusing other editors. During my time on Wikipedia, I have witnessed some individuals cast inappropriate slurs and aspersions against both Falun Gong and persons of Chinese descent in content disputes and other forums. This is inappropriate. If you require clarification: it is not acceptable for editors to refer to Falun Gong as a "cult," except and unless doing so is of direct relevance to a content discussion (for instance, when analyzing the framing and discourses around the group). I believe that references such as "Falun Gongers" or "Falun Gongsters" may also be considered derogatory to adherents of the faith, and should be avoided. Homunculus (duihua) 22:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you give some examples of the slurs against "persons of Chinese descent" and how it is relevant in this case? Also, I contend the idea that 'Falun Gongers' or 'Falun Gongsters' is derogatory, or can be understood in the same context as a derogatory religious slurs such as "bible thumper" or "towelhead". Calling someone a "Scientologist" or "Mormon" is not a slur, just as calling someone a "Falun Gong'er" is not a slur. Colipon+(Talk) 22:51, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I have witnessed users making inappropriate comments about editors on the basis of their Chinese nationality, imputing to them particularly undesirable characteristics, etc., in response to content disputes. One of the instances I'm thinking of was in an edit summary, and it was oversighted, so I will not provide a diff. Fortunately we do not have editors currently involved who would resort to name-calling or stereotyping of this sort, but these principles are written as much for the present as for posterity.

Do you think that a Falun Gong adherent would appreciate being called a "Falun Gongster" or "Falun Gonger"? Is that a term they would employ themselves, or one that is adopted in the scholarly literature as a legitimate label? If not, I suggest avoiding it. Homunculus (duihua) 00:03, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, most Falun Gongsters are Chinese like me, so it seems unlikely they would use the term. People affiliated with Falun Gong constantly point out there is no membership, so that word automatically becomes out of bounds unless a person is out to make a point. Use of abbreviations is commonplace in the English language, and indeed many languages. In order to express the idea of 'anyone who practices Falun Gong or otherwise appears to profess allegiance to Li Hongzhi or Falun Dafa Association' is a bit of a mouthful, so like 'Hongkonger' or 'Honkie' (as they say in Malaysia/Singapore), 'Falun Gonger' or 'Falun Gongster' ought to be usuable. Ever the pragmatist, I used it for the sake of convenience. To interpret and present this as some sort of religious slur and seek to declare it a taboo may well be within the paranoid psyche of the Falun Gong believers, sympathisers or their apologists, because it certainly isn't mainstream. Nobody ever used derogatory terms like "Chink" – gosh, I haven't heard that word used in years – but please enlighten us with concrete examples in recent use in this or other related discussions. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:38, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ John, I suppose we could leave off the bit about national epithets, since we don't have people employing them. But the other parts of this proposal are highly relevant in this case, as follows from diffs presented on the evidence page (and many discussions that were not presented). Several of the parties named here have, in content discussions, sought to marginalize or diminish the ideas or contributions of others by casting them variously as Falun Gong members, devotees, sympathizers, meatpuppets, etc. These labels have been applied both to actual Falun Gong adherents, and to non-practitioners. These has been—and unfortunately, continues to be—a great deal of unreasonable speculation in this regard. Homunculus (duihua) 01:29, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Falun Gonger" and "Falun Gongster" are or may reasonably be interpreted to be pejorative, deprecatory epithets. I do not see how they are helpful or necessary. If you are referring to another editor, use their username. If you are referring to a specific person in society, use their name. If you are referring to Falun Gong practitioners in general, then use Falun Gong practitioners, adherents, etc. There's no need to use pejorative epithets. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 02:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ John, myself and several other editors—people who strive to edit in a content-oriented way, and to treat other editors in a collegial manner—have been regularly disparaged by the parties named here on the basis of a presumed religious affiliation. That these users would engage in inappropriate speculation on the religion of others, declaring them Falun Gong devotees when they have not identified as such, is itself unacceptable. Yet this happens in content discussions on an ongoing basis. It is not used as a means of explaining unusual or improper behavior, as you suggest. It is used as an ad hominem attack to discredit others in content disputes. It has also used as an excuse for inappropriate behavior (ie. user x is justified in edit warring / failing to participate in talk page discussion because the other parties are suspected Falun Gong devotees, etc.) For instance, when Ohconfucius broke the 3RR and I filed a report against him, he responded by adding me to a list of "Falun Gong editors" that he keeps in his user space, providing a link to that page to other editors, and telling them that a dispute resolution will not work with me because I am a Falun Gong editor whose "worldview" is only concerned with proselytism and advocacy. This is, simply put, harassment.

This kind of conduct has happened even after multiple warnings and requests to focus on content, not contributors. It is remarkably demoralizing, it creates a toxic atmosphere, and is absolutely prohibited under WP:NPA. Homunculus (duihua) 03:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Yes, agree with everything, except (partly) 2nd phrase. If an editor has any real (as opposed to imaginary) official affiliation with an outside organization, and this can lead to problems with editing in "difficult" areas, they must disclose their COI for the good of the project. But yes, the existence of COI per se should not be a reason for ad hominem attacks or dismissing or discrediting their contributions. My very best wishes (talk) 18:19, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed principles are really only relevant to an Arbitration Committee hearing if there is clear evidence that the principle has been violated in the case. The basic principle is already covered by WP:CIVILITY. Until and unless clear evidence of violations of this principle are produced, in all honesty, I cannot see any purpose to this proposal in this particular instance. I could just as easily make proposals regarding every extant policy and guideline, whether they apply to this particular case or not, but I believe that doing so would very much alienate the arbitrators and possibly be regarded by them as a form of tendentious editing as per WP:TE. John Carter (talk) 01:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Homunculus: Actually, I remember as per the AE case that you specifically indicated that you are sympathetic to Falun Gong, and that all academics you knew were as well, did you not? That can be and very often is clearly relevant because it also can be an indicator that the person involved might not be really capable of editing neutrally, in violation of WP:POV. In all honesty, none of the four terms you specifically used in your last comment could reasonably be considered "out of line," because they all can be seen to relate to various policies and guidelines. When people act in a way in which others see them as acting in a way indicating that the individual involved may have reasons which are not necessarily in accord with wikipedia's best interests, it can be and fairly often is a reasonable response to wonder why this unusual conduct is going on. I have been in several ArbCom hearings myself, in some form or other, and the terms you indicated above are fairly frequently used rather regularly on ArbCom pages, and I have seen them rather regularly used prior to formal Arbitration as well. John Carter (talk) 01:40, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed findings of fact

Locus of dispute

1) The editors named have been involved in disputes over user conduct and content on pages broadly related to Falun Gong, including at such pages as Bo Xilai, Shen Yun Performing Arts, and Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident.

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Comment by others:

Background

2) The articles broadly related to Falun Gong have been the subject of disputes since their creation. Content disputes mirror real-world issues stemming from conflicting viewpoints over representations of the practice and the Chinese government’s suppression of the group. The namespace has been subject to discretionary sanctions since 2007, and these have been applied to block or ban several editors.

Over time, there has been a general trend of improvement on the Falun Gong namespace resulting in most articles becoming more complete, well-sourced, and stable overall. This owes to the work of dedicated editors to research and write high-quality content; to the adoption of a consensus-based model for discussing changes; to the involvement of subject matter experts; and to scrutiny applied by editors with different perspectives and views.

However, there has been a tendency among some editors to adopt adversarial approaches; some of the involved parties appear to have carried past grievances, resentments and feelings of exasperation into their interactions with other editors who do not share their views. This has manifest as a tendency to assume bad faith, to regularly impugn the integrity of others’ motives, to make personal attacks, adopt battleground mentalities, and to defend and reinforce disruptive edits and behavior. Some editors have expressed a lack of confidence in the consensus model, leading them to eschew collaboration in favor of either edit wars without discussion, or simply the disparagement of other parties. These behaviors, in turn, serve to deepen mutual feelings of exasperation among the parties.

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Note: above is my attempt to offer a dispassionate assessment of only the behavioral issues involved, but it might be worth saying a bit more about my personal perspective. Me and a couple other editors are a regular presence on the Falun Gong topic. We build complete and balanced articles, patrol for vandalism, double-check sources, respond to comments and suggestions on the talk pages, provide suggestions to new contributors, etc. Basically, we do the tedious work of trying to ensure that the pages accord with Wikipedia's core content policies and are as complete and well written as possible. I think this is why there has been progress on these pages. In my observation Shrigley, Colipon, and Ohconfucius do not do this. They rarely participate on these pages, and when they do, their contributions serve exclusively to advance a very specific point of view—one which, in my opinion, is not very well supported by reliable sources. It is my personal observation that they became more active in this namespace sometime around the new year after a period of inactivity, and their involvement precipitated greater instability across this space. I have not found them to be very interested in collegial, good faith discussions of content; instead they edit war, make major changes without any attempt to work with other editors, and disparage and malign the motives of others. I didn't want to articulate this; I assumed the evidence could speak for itself, but there it is.Homunculus (duihua) 23:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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Proposed enforcement

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Proposals by Colipon

Proposed principles

POV-pushing not acceptable, no matter what form

1) Editors are encouraged to assume good faith, particularly for new users. However, if behavior and editorial patterns reveal over a lengthy period of time that they are interested in POV-pushing and not the improvement of the encyclopedia according to the Five Pillars, the accounts should be summarily sanctioned at the discretion of presiding administrators. This standard should be applied especially stringently with highly politicized articles, promotion, and advocacy.

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Comment by parties:

This is not such a novel idea. New users especially are prone to be blocked if they make a series of exclusively POV-pushing edits, under the rationale that they are "not here to build an encyclopedia". Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Agree. On my 27-inch iMac, this wikidrama is 36 pages high and still growing. That’s ten meters of material to read through, which I refuse to torture myself with. No process on Wikipedia should subject wikipedians to such colossal waste of their time in order for the community to restore order. All the community wants is for our Falun Gong article to be a venue like any other around here: a place where wikipedians can enjoy the hobby of technical writing in a collegial collaborative writing environment, and to be able to do so in a manner that abides by the spirit and letter of our rules. When this all goes smoothly, our readership benefits and so too do our wikipedians.

There is no need to allow wikilawyering to obfuscate the obvious here. It’s clear that a small cabal lead lead by User:Homunculus comprises single-purpose editors specializing in Falun Gong-related articles and that these editors are pushing a particular POV—one favorable to the Falun Gong. Wikipedia has had enough of this sort of thing with the Falun Gong and Scientology; enough so that special “case law,” so to speak, has sprung from these articles.

POV pushing amounts, at best, to lying through omission. At times, it insidiously amounts to much worse. These POV pushers are akin to snake oil salesman in the Old West. They pull up their wagon, spew misinformation, and the townsfolk are liberated of their hard-earned money in return for garbage. The result: we have ten meter’s worth of ruckus because well-meaning editors like Ohconfucius, Colipon and Shrigley spit tobacco juice on the boots of the snake oil salesmen after being tag-teamed in an edit war.

It’s simple: All this wikidrama should have stopped before it started. A bold admin (do they make those anymore around here?) who was involved and therefore best understood the details of the dispute should have solicited an outside—and equally bold—admin to take a look at the root of the problem. The proper remedy should have been swift and with predjudice: year-long blocks to the POV pushers; they are toxic to Wikipedia. Greg L (talk) 18:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No-tolerance policy towards SPAs

2) Single purpose accounts dedicated to advocacy should not be tolerated in any way and summarily banned.

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Colipon, it may be helpful for you to read through some of the policies here [14] regarding this idea. In particular these parts:

Focus on the edits not the editor

Per policy, "as a matter of … effective discourse, comments should not be personalized. That is, they should be directed at content and actions rather than people." Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions is a personal attack, regardless of the manner in which it is done. The usual exception to this principle is reasonably expressed concerns raised within a legitimate dispute resolution process.

Conflict of Interest guideline (this is basically what you're alleging)

Many issues concerning paid editing, anonymous editing, outing and harassment, are unresolved. Our policies and guidelines are complicated and sometimes contradictory. Investigating, sanctioning and/or exonerating editors on the basis of who they are or what they do in real life is not only controversial but often impossible. Furthermore, extreme cases apart, there is no consensus about the extent that editors may edit articles on topics with which they are personally involved. Hence, of necessity, review must focus primarily on the editing patterns of those editors about whom problems are claimed.

I agree with the idea that those who demonstrate an inability to edit and discuss things constructively should be sanctioned. I think problematic SPAs will inevitably be caught in these, existing, mechanisms for dealing with disruptive behavior.

With your proposal here, my concern is that the way you have used "SPA" is so broad as to allow misuse. In the way that you, Ohconfucius, and Shrigley have applied it, there is no clear criteria for the label or accusation, and what one has to do to earn it, or be cleared of it. It seems to have become an exercise in mind-reading, or interpreting or imagining the motives or affiliations of other editors. Or to put it another way, it may be interpreted as a kind of label to negatively categorize and discredit editors who hold opposing views on matters of content. Then once those people are negatively categorized, they are to be banned. One criteria you provide for detecting these editors is in your evidence submission: "I firmly believe that only activists extremely invested in Falun Gong would push for the inclusion of FRINGE material on FLG lawsuits on articles about Chinese officials." Statements like this may complicate an evaluation of your proposal. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is very clear criteria for SPA, which Homunculus fits: a user account or IP editor whose editing is limited to one very narrow area or set of articles, or whose edits to many articles appear to be for a common purpose. Colipon+(Talk) 14:55, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"China" is not a narrow topic area, and you have completely failed to adduce that my edits are oriented toward the advancement of a point of view. Simply restating this point emphatically will not make it true. I write complete articles, and I write good articles. By your own admission, I am "unwaveringly civil," meticulous about sourcing, am very familiar with policies and guidelines, edit a broad set of articles (500 of them), and proactively write and create content. These are good qualities. Take a look at the pages I've recently been working on — Terrorism in the People's Republic of China, Barefoot lawyer, Chongqing model, etc. — I wrote almost everything on these pages. If you have ideas on how these articles could better reflect the views of reliable sources, then you're welcome to collaborate on them. But don't try to divine that my intention in writing these articles is to vilify the Communist Party to advance a Falun Gong cause.~~It's seriously extraordinary that you think you can ban someone indefinitely from a broad topic area simply because you don't like what you imagine to be their point of view.~~. Homunculus (duihua) 22:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC) Homunculus (duihua) 15:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's let ArbCom decide. If you don't like the evidence I've presented, you can counter with other evidence, do analysis of your own to refute what I've written, or even levy charges at myself like TSTF had done. Colipon+(Talk) 15:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

No, WP:SPA and WP:ACTIVIST are questionable essays, not a policy. In fact, telling to other contributors that they are "SPA" and "activists" does not help to maintain the collegial atmosphere and must be avoided. Comment on content, not on the contributor, please. My very best wishes (talk) 18:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that this principle may have been used in the past before. The fact that things are merely essays does not mean that they might include material which is potentially useful and relevant in particular cases. And I find the above comment, seeking to tell people how to behave, apparently specifically clearly instructing them that they cannot comment about individual editors in a situation which was specifically begun to address problematic behavior of specific editors, basically irrational and under the circumstances almost incomprehensible. John Carter (talk) 19:15, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a firm believer in assume good faith, particularly for newcomers, and I think we bite them too often for no good reason. But there should be a 'reasonable limits clause' on AGF - which is that if an editor shows consistent patterns of POV-pushing on both article and talk space, discussions of the user's good faith should not be considered a violation of Wikipedia guidelines, but should be reasonably limited to dispute resolution venues such as AE, instead of article talk pages. These discussions should be descriptive rather than speculative ("X's edit patterns overwhelmingly reflect that of a user with a Greek nationalist POV", rather than "X is being paid by the Greek lobbyists to protect Greek national interests on Wikipedia"). I agree that baseless speculation about a user's conflict-of-interest is not helpful, so there needs to be overwhelming evidence.
The point is, a user whose edits obviously have the appearance of bad faith cannot just invoke WP:AGF as a 'free pass' to do what they please. Colipon+(Talk) 19:49, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Carter. Speaking about SPA, I do not think that anyone here qualifies as SPA. Speaking about ACTIVIST, the related official policy is WP:SOAP, and yes, it certainly applies in this case. Now, speaking about your last point (commenting about other contributors), let's consider this diff from another side [15]. It is civil, well intended and made on appropriate page (unlike soapboaxing on article take pages by others). Such comments are typical for many well-intended newbies. They think they can openly discuss any problems, as if they were doing a project at work. Wrong. The user would be better off if he never said this. Why? Because this environment is very far from collaborative, to say the least. Let's see if he will be punished for openly talking. My very best wishes (talk) 20:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. See my post, above for my reasoning. And, in accordance with my own observation that far too much needless wikidrama has transpired so far, it should be sufficiently clear from my first post how I feel about the rest of these motions. Greg L (talk) 18:20, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed findings of fact

Homunculus is an SPA

1) Homunculus is a single-purpose account dedicated to Falun Gong advocacy. Unhelpful version redacted by clerk. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 19:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Please note that "Falun Gong advocacy" here should be broadly construed, and includes material that is critical of the Communist Party of China, which is the flip side of the same Falun Gong advocacy coin. Colipon+(Talk) 20:55, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Determining that would require a qualitative analysis of the user's edits and a finding that they promoted Falun Gong or were critical of the CPC in a way that was not supported by reliable sources. How would it work? Would a committee get together and carefully analyze the edits, acquaint themselves extensively with the content matter, and then produce a report showing how the user's edits were not consistent with what reliable sources have to say about the topics in question, and were probably part of a politico-religious agenda? As far as I know there is no precedent for that, and besides, it would obviously be impractical. The effect of such a categorization would be to make a judgement on which views were permissible on Wikipedia and which weren't. Scholars and experts regularly disagree about "content," so to speak. The way this has usually been resolved has been to examine patterns of behavior: to see who is being disruptive, who is attacking and accusing other editors, and who is unwilling to work collaboratively and in good faith. It has not been to divide people into various categories, then sanction them based on those categories. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:49, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that ArbCom tends not to actually make statements in their final decision that someone is an SPA. However, as per the archives here, it is proposed in the workshops rather often. Saying nothing one way or another about the technical details about who qualifies as an SPA as per WP:SPA or not, I think it would make more sense to address the perceived pattern of edits than get hung up on technicalities. Like I said, it doesn't seem ArbCom includes this in the final decision often, partially given the pages status as an essay, but it can still be potentially relevant to say it in the workshop, as many have apparently done in the past. John Carter (talk) 00:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colipon, the topic area in which I edit — mostly 20th-century and contemporary China—is not narrow. It's the same scope as your edits. And no, a quantitative analysis of my contributions cannot be used to make an assessment on the qualitative nature of my edits. Your AE was 5,000 words of bluster, argumentation, distortion and misrepresentation, not "overwhelming evidence" of POV-pushing. I have 4,000 edits to 500 unique pages. I write complete articles, have created dozens of pages, and was the primary author on two GAs, with more on the way. That you would propose this is extraordinary, and says more about you than about me. Homunculus (duihua) 14:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not only the narrow scope, but also the easily identifiable pattern of anti-CCP rhetoric and editorializing very consistent with FLG world-views, that you would find totally absent from edits by say, Ohconfucius (who actually appears mildly anti-CCP), or myself. Therefore, independent of the size of articles you create, their completeness, and the perceived 'narrowness' of your scope etc., if the common purpose for the edits is basically the same, then it would make for a convincing case that the edits serve a purpose other than our project's stated goals, and altogether detrimental to building this encyclopedia.
Moreover, I'll add that it is perfectly fine to edit in a narrow topical area if the purpose of it is encyclopedic and consistent with our goals. One can be a widely-focused single-purpose account, just as one can be a narrowly focused editor-in-good-faith. I have faith that ArbCom will approach these principles with common sense, not sticking to just the letter of the policies. Colipon+(Talk) 15:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This might be more appropriate in the analysis of evidence section, but I'll keep it short. To be clear, this section [16], which I wrote, is the kind of thing that you presented in your AE as my "anti-CCP" editorializing. I don't know if you saw it, but my response to your AE is here. I don't have anything more to say on this question. Homunculus (duihua) 15:35, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Contributing to two "GAs" doesn't excuse bad behavior elsewhere, but I should note that one of these GAs (Bo Xilai), Colipon basically wrote 40% of the pre-GA content, partly to balance your biases, and maintained primary authorship of the article for years. Plus, GA reviews are not comprehensive when it comes to bias; they are completed by a single user. By contrast, Ohconfucius wrote a featured article, Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident, which went through a rigorous review process. A large part of TSTF's "evidence" against Ohc consists of Ohc trying to recover the carefully established FA-ratified balance against subsequent edits which shifted the bias of the article in favor of Falun Gong's viewpoints. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To those who have read extensively, or even not so extensively, about Falun Gong activism, the clearest evidence by far of their identification with Falun Gong is their interest in defending Shen Yun – a marginal theatrical troupe that is the front line for the Falun Gong, who spread word of the persecution of Falun Gong to a paying audience. That they would participate in a slow edit war with IP at an article with an average daily traffic of 60, and on the issue promotional ethics (allegations that FLG were giving away free tickets to Shen Yun to help them raise funding) :"Just clicked this and link was dead, maybe retracted";"Correct the grammar while reverting anon IP's tendentious edits with explanation on talk"; "This issue has already been discussed on talk. It's not notable, and the notice in question has been removed". "Restore to H.'s last version; add 'daily' to Telegraph per other edit". Then we have Homunculus arguing that there were favourable reviews about the political aspects of the SY performance, that I subsequently explain is unfounded.
Probably just as characteristic is their very extreme and unique sensitivity at Falun Gong being labelled a cult. That is the only possible explanation for one or both of them having Cult suicide on their watchlists. Within minutes of me making my first edit there, Homunculus appears and reverts me. She reverts me a second time and then tactically switches to posting 800b of content to "Editing for balance. Note this is not an endorsement. No RS call this a cult suicide, so it does not belong on the page". I say this is tactical because she knows where the bright red line is and was already confident that I had crossed it. She bides her time waiting for TSTF to come on line at 9am local time, when he immediately reverts me and takes me to AN3. Days later, when the complaint is archived he exhumes it. TSTF's assertion that he saw my edits to said page from my edit history is unconvincing. Neither H nor TSTF had ever edited that article up to that point. TSTF denies watchlisting the article whilst Homunculus never did; the fact that I was making approximately 300 edits a day at the time, and the likelihood that a non-FLG editor would immediately make connection to this article renders it improbable that TSTF could have innocently found those edits of mine unless he was also watching said page, or they were back-channeling. The fact that the first thing TSTF did when arriving at the office was to file an AN3 complaint against me tells me everything I had previously suspected was true. More or less the same timeline can be observed here. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:18, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Ohc raises a very good point that is serious cause for alarm. The longest that a revision with even a hint of criticism of Shen Yun survives is about eight hours: i.e. overnight. The reverts of a critical edit that survives for more than a few hours occurs uniformly in the morning local time ([17] [18] [19] [20]).
  During the working day or evenings, most of the critical revisions are reverted within minutes [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]. Their edit history at Shen Yun alone is enough to warrant sanctions. Colipon+(Talk) 16:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's unfortunate that editors feel the need to make comments like this in such a forum. Ohconfucius' statement directly above contains assertions which are false and/or misrepresent other editors. I feel sorry for the Arbs reviewing the case that they have to wade through this. Ohconfucius, if you wanted to know why I reverted you edits so quickly at Cult suicide, you could have just asked me. You have claimed that I must have watchlisted this page, and used that as evidence that I am a secret Falun Gong SPA. It was not on my watchlist, and I am not a Falun Gong SPA. The explanation is simple: I was online, I saw you make two rather curious FLG-related edits on my watchlist (here and here). I then checked your contribution log, and saw that you had made (what I considered to be) a rather disruptive edit related to Falun Gong at Cult suicide. It had not yet been buried by your other contributions. That is all. Homunculus (duihua) 16:40, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I will not respond to the above unless asked to by an Arbitrator. I assume that this is not part of evidence and I don't want to continue the bickering. I saw cult suicide in Ohc's watchlist, because I had just filed enforcement proceedings, I saw his edits, and I performed a revert (no RS) and engaged in discussion. Roughly the same for the Shen Yun pages. The labeling of editors and divining of motivations is unproductive and counter to Wikipedia's principles, and is part of why I initially filed the AE. I think we have had enough of this. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:36, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

User who edited 500+ different pages [26] (as Homunculus) can not be considered an SPA. My very best wishes (talk) 18:13, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The number of unique pages edited is a useless metric. Ohconfucius's quantitative analysis shows that an overwhelming majority of both H and TSTF's significant edits in terms of byte count (i.e., not simple typo correction and formatting changes) relate to Falun Gong. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence presented by Ohconfucius did not show that. It's really quite serious to misrepresent editors with the purpose of having them banned or sanctioned. Homunculus (duihua) 04:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohc have provided an evidence to demonstrate that H is a single purpose account dedicated to Falun Gong advocacy. What is more troubling is that there are evidences that could indicate that H and TSTF are tag-teaming. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 06:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohconfucius did not provide evidence showing that, and repeating it will not make it so. Ohconfucius provided a quantitative analysis of my edits (whose authenticity I am uncertain of; some pages seem to be omitted) showing that two out of the top ten articles to which I've contributed, by byte count, are related to Falun Gong. The quantitative analysis, moreover, cannot be used to make qualitative assessments that my edits are of the nature of advocacy. An actual qualitative analysis would show that not to be the case. I'm not sure what tag-teaming evidence is being referred to, though for the sake of assuaging concerns of collaboration, it might be worth noting that I emailed TSTF for the first time about a month ago. People with independent agency may sometimes find the same edits objectionable. For instance, we both tended to find AgadaUrbanit's involvement at Falun Gong to be largely unconstructive—repeatedly tag-bombing the page with no explanation, insisting that a factual statement attributed to the New York Times and Associated Press was original research, demanding scanned copies of book pages for 17 fully cited statements, etc.—though we had different approaches to addressing the problems we perceived. As an aside, the workshop phase was supposed to have closed, no? Homunculus (duihua) 12:17, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are smoother tag placing discussions in Wikipedia, see Talk:Xombrero#COI_check, for instance. The author places the tag, the tag is being discussed and when the consensus is established the tag is being removed. No hurry. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohconfucius, Homunculus and TSTF edit-warred

2) Ohconfucius, Homunculus, and TSTF have engaged in edit-warring

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Is there really strong evidence of my edit warring? I have consistently attempted not to engage in that. It is defined as "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion." I have in every single case attempted to resolve disagreements through civil discussion. I'm not sure there are clear instances of my doing multiple reverts in the way that edit warring is usually understood. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:47, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Enduring nature of Falun Gong dispute

3) Falun Gong articles have been the subject of heated content disputes since their creation. There has been one previous arbitration case, a large number of arbitration enforcement sanctions, and no noticeable reduction of conflict on the pages. Dispute resolution venues on Wikipedia have failed to resolve content issues.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is meant to be descriptive of the state of affairs, not any individual. We can refine the language if necessary. Colipon+(Talk) 23:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Falun Gong articles on revert parole

1) Place all Falun Gong articles on revert parole indefinitely, including 'partial reverts', and 're-organization' of articles that removes recently added material.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Good idea. A large part of the conflict consists of editors (from diverse viewpoints) completely rewriting articles - whether in one big edit as is H's style, or a series of small edits, in Ohc's style. Also, there was an absurd amount of reverting from people who claimed justification from false "consensus" on talk pages, or just "revert - I justified my edits on the talk page!" Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

No, do not blame subjects. They can be neutrally written. The problem are always contributors. My very best wishes (talk) 18:24, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The articles are already under discretionary sanctions, as per earlier. Also, adding such a requirement would potentially make it such that editors would be afraid to remove some clearly disruptive edits, for fear of violating the sanction.John Carter (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. In a way, I'm trying to strike a balance here, because even a bit of 'tolerance' for disruptive behavior can be an open invite for gaming the system. So I am definitely open to the refinement of such proposals. Colipon+(Talk) 19:18, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions should be summarized and closed by uninvolved users

2) Discussions over Falun Gong material outside of Falun Gong article space, if they reach an 'impasse', should be closed by uninvolved users, preferably admins, who will decisively summarize consensus much like they are summarized in a 'move' or 'deletion' request.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

There is an existing process for this, which is WP:RFC. While, in a sense, I would not necessarily object to this regarding some articles related to this topic, this is a current and developing topic and making such a process obligatory might create some BLP problems in certain instances. John Carter (talk) 19:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, having participated at a few FLG-related RFCs, they have been woefully inefficient at solving any content related disputes, and rarely is a discussion conclusively 'closed'. Basically, any user can just continue to wiki-lawyer their way out of consensus with any type of rationale they see fit, and act as a sort of filibuster. I've learned this approach from recent discussions at removing recurring items of In The News; an admin, hopefully somewhat knowledgeable in the area, will just have to boldly come in and establish consensus, particularly when one side (or both) is reluctant to even move an inch. Colipon+(Talk) 19:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homunculus indefinite one-year topic ban from articles related to Falun Gong and sensitive BLPs

1) Homunculus topic-banned for a year from Falun Gong articles, widely construed, including articles related to the Communist Party of China and especially BLPs of individuals with whom Falun Gong has a grudge (Jiang, Bo, John Liu).

Comment by Arbitrators:

No comment on the proposal just yet, but if I may be pedantic this belongs in Remedies. Enforcement provisions are "this is what to do if an editor violates a remedy", and with the Committee's recent motions custom provisions are essentially deprecated anyway. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

As overwhelming evidence from my AE case and the 'user analysis' by Ohconfucius reveal, Homunculus is an SPA dedicated to Falun Gong advocacy, including all manners of criticism against the CCP, and this pattern is consistent in the vast majority of articles edited by this user. Colipon+(Talk) 18:50, 18 June 2012 (UTC) Moved here by arb, please keep the format consistent. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to add that BLPs should be of special concern, since this user has repeatedly shown a propensity to selectively quote sources to portray an unfavourable image of Falun Gong's perceived opponents, for example this edit at Bo Xilai, and this edit to John Liu. When questioned about these edits, this user replies that since "reliable sources" were used, everything is just fine. Colipon+(Talk) 01:48, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe that Colipon's characterization of my editing history, motivations, or editorial patterns are accurate, and the evidence does not, in my view, support the conclusion that I am an "SPA dedicated to Falun Gong advocacy". To the contrary, I think I've provided several examples of pages I've built or collaborated on that would disprove this narrative. I edit a broad scope of articles, contribute a substantial amount of well researched and well written content, and I strive to be civil, welcoming and consensus-oriented. Within the Falun Gong namespace, I think I've made very substantial contributions by writing at least three complete, stable, and well sourced pages, as well as working extensively with other editors to achieve the same on several more pages in this space. I think the talk page histories on these article demonstrate a consistent willingness to seek compromise.

"When questioned about these edits, this user replies that since "reliable sources" were used, everything is just fine." Colipon, please provide diffs showing where I said that about those edits to John Liu and Bo Xilai.

Two days have passed, and Colipon has not presented evidence for the above claim after being asked to do so. So I will provide the diffs. Here are the talk page conversations that accompanied the edits Colipon identified above. John Liu [27][28] ; Bo Xilai [29]. They are not at all as Colipon has characterized them.Homunculus (duihua) 21:04, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ John, I respect that you have this opinion of me, though I'll admit I don't quite understand what has led you to these conclusions. I think we may not understand each other very well; we've had very few interactions outside this forum, and I think it's clear that we have approached this venue with very different conceptions of the problems. It's also clear that the nature of our interactions with the other parties involved is vastly different. I might very briefly address some of the points you've raised. I'm not sure where there is evidence that I display a history of assuming "that because [my] opinion about FG practitioners is shared by other academics...that it is undeniabily true." I don't think this conclusion reasonably follows from my statements, or from my actions on article pages, so I find it a bit confusing. I assume you're referring to the single instance in AE where I said that, while I don't always agree with the approaches of the Falun Gong practitioners I know, I find them worthy of respect, and I share this general impression with scholars. Is that right? I think this is the only time I have made any statements concerning the alignment between my views and those of scholars.

I've tried not to belittle or insult other editors. As I've stated, I'm not comfortable making accusations against people or trying to discredit them, though I think in this forum such things can happen; in particular, I think I've been misrepresented a good deal, and others parties have argued for me to be topic banned on the basis of what I've deemed to be misrepresentations, and I have sought to defend myself. As to the suggestion that I have a POV but am unable to see it as such, every editor has a point of view, and I do actively try to be aware of mine and be open to (hopefully good faith) remonstrations. In the AE case, I made a disclosure in good faith of my affiliations, personal connections to this topic, and noted how my personal biases may affect me. I did not anticipate that such disclosures, made in good faith, would be used as evidence that I have a point of view problem and presented as support for a topic ban.

I suppose I would have one request to the administrators. If this suggestion is carried out, I would hope that I can be offered some specific feedback on where I need to do better. I don't think I've violated any rules, and I think I've generally comported myself in compliance with core content and behavioral policies. However, it is possible that I'm lacking in self-awareness. I think evidence has been presented here that shows I'm someone who corrects her behavior when I'm made aware of problems, and I'll do the same in the future. Homunculus (duihua) 21:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Weak support. I would include the option to have the ban reviewed and possibly lifted after a year if conduct improves. I believe the editor has displayed a history of assuming, in effect, that because his/her opinion about FG practitioners is shared by other academics, as has been said elsewhere, that it is undeniabily true. This is not a logical conclusion. Homunculus also seems to regularly take a rather condescending Pollyanna approach to fellow editors, particularly if they do not conform to his/her personal view of a "perfect world." In short, the editor seems to me, through my conversations with him/her, to not only have a POV, but to not be able to see it as such. This editor is a comparatively newer editor. Unfortunately, as indicated elsewhere on this page, Homunculus has somewhat regularly belittled others without clear substantiation, while at the same time complaining that others treat them the same way. His/her apparently very strong views of justice or fairness may well make them a very good counseller, as per the tearoom, but can and I believe do create serious problems in content where he or she cannot seem to grasp that these dearly-held opinions are simply opinions. John Carter (talk) 19:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

John, I have altered the proposal in light of your comment above. Colipon+(Talk) 01:48, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I do not think that main issue is POV. All parties here, including admittedly involved administrators [30] have certain POV. The problem is inability to constructively interact with other users who have opposite POV. Such inability usually manifests itself as firing unsubstantiated personal accusations (like "SPA" about established editors who edited 500+ different pages, "activists" and so on), and I have seen a lot of this, but mostly from another "side". My very best wishes (talk) 19:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TSTF narrowly-construed ban

2) TSTF banned from Falun Gong articles, narrowly construed, for a year. Depending on behavior off-FLG space, the ban may be lifted subject to admin discretion. The ban is narrowly construed as such: 1) that articles related to the CCP or Chinese governance in general should not be part of this ban 2) editing Falun Gong material on the same articles, however, is prohibited.

Comment by Arbitrators:

No comment on the proposal just yet, but if I may be pedantic this belongs in Remedies. Enforcement provisions are "this is what to do if an editor violates a remedy", and with the Committee's recent motions custom provisions are essentially deprecated anyway. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

While the majority of this user's substantive edits are Falun Gong-related and his editing patterns reflect persistent pro-Falun Gong advocacy, he has made constructive edits consistent with the goals of Wikipedia to articles about philosophers, and as such this can be seen as a 'mitigating circumstance'. It does not harm the encyclopedia for this user to continue his work in areas unrelated to Falun Gong. Colipon+(Talk) 18:49, 18 June 2012 (UTC) Moved here by arb, please keep the format consistent. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence of behavioral problems on my part or of problematic editing or particular POV-pushing. I have documented edits of mine that are not favorable to Falun Gong (as though that mattered in and of itself - but I was being accused of being an activist), and I have noted my willingness to engage in civil and collegial discussion, focusing on content rather than people, and with reference to reliable sources. There are no grounds for any form of ban or finding of fact that would support such a ban. To John: I have seen no evidence to the effect that I mostly edit human rights-related content, or with a view to promoting such causes. I do not feel that that is my focus. Also, it is not that a particular editor appearing to have X point of view that is in particular a major problem for Wikipedia - we all have our points of view - but the inability to work cooperatively with others on constructing pages. I am civil and active in discussion and I work with others and compromise. Some of the diffs that Colipon has shown as evidence of my apparent POV indicate this. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 19:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Qualified support. Would prefer an indefinite ban from the articles but not necessarily the article talk pages with the option of review after one year. A quick review of the editor's history reveals a very strong emphasis on human rights related content, generally in regards to promotion of same. While I and I think probably virtually everyone else agrees human rights are a good thing, and that they should be acknowledged and promoted by everybody, it is also true that there are significant differences of opinions regarding which and whose rights take priority in instances of conflict. Unfortunately, the Falun Gong issue is seen in the west as being almost exclusively a human rights issue, with the government of the CCP cast as the bad guy. This is apparently, to some degree, true, but it is still a POV, and POV editing creates problems, particularly when the editors involved do not recognize their POV as such. John Carter (talk) 19:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I do not think that main issue is POV. All parties here, including admittedly involved administrators [31] have certain POV. The problem is inability to constructively interact with other users who have an opposite POV. Such inability usually manifests itself as firing unsubstantiated personal accusations (like "SPA" about established editors who edited 500+ different pages, "activists" and so on), and I have seen a lot of this, but mostly from another "side". My very best wishes (talk) 19:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is see no particular problem with TSTF contributing outside the defined FLG-zone for some time, it appears that the span and the width of the ban is constructed sensibly in order to allow further TSTF positive contributions to this project. Subsequently the ban may be lifted subject to admin discretion. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 07:07, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed enforcement

No-tolerance policy

1) [Still in development]: Topic bans lasting thirty calendar days be levied to any user who edit-wars, refuses to adhere to admin-sponsored consensus, or otherwise displays POV-pushing behavior consistent across multiple discussions/articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is an enforcement proposal still under development; I am thinking about the greater context... previous ARBFLG ruling has failed to maintain NPOV and a constructive editing environment at Falun Gong articles, and problematic editing will likely continue despite targeted bans of certain users; sockpuppets and meatpuppets are bound to appear, since, much like other NRMs such as Scientology, real-world stakes for Falun Gong's polished image on Wikipedia is extremely high. I will do some more research on previous arbitration cases to see what remedies are available in this regard. Colipon+(Talk) 18:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Interesting idea, but I think blocks/bans of such length are pretty likely going to fairly common anyway on a topic which had been placed under discretionary sanctions before the current arbitration began. Certainly, anyone previously involved would likely be subject to fairly strict sanctions should they prove necessary. Also, this is probably already pretty much possible through Arbitration Enforcement, I think. And, while the comparison to Scientology is a good one, Scientology is figured to currently have maybe 30,000 or so followers worldwide, according to Janet Reitman's recent book. It also has so far as I can tell few if any outsiders really interested in promoting its cause. I think the number of adherents (of some sort) of FG, and the number of people seeking to promote its cause, or use it for their own purposes, is probably much higher. At this point, much as I hate saying it, I think maybe placing the articles relating directly to FG under indefinite hardlocks with edits to the article only possible by an uninvolved admin might be called for. To say I dislike that idea is understatement, but at least for a while it might be one of the few options that might work. John Carter (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, I think all Falun Gong articles, as well as select few 'sensitive' articles which may be frequented by FLG activists (Jiang Zemin, Bo Xilai, Propaganda in the PRC, Organ transplantation in the PRC), should be at least semi-protected. I noticed that not even the 'main' Falun Gong article is under such protection. Colipon+(Talk) 21:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure about the viability of a proposal that suggests a zero-tolerance policy towards "POV-pushing." How does one define that? Virtually any edit, with the exception of minor ones or stylistic changes, could potentially be interpreted as representing a point of view.

@ John, as a general comment, I'm not sure that comparisons to Scientology are the most apt in this circumstance. This is not merely a question of a new religious movement trying to advance particular representations. It is a new religious movement against which a very powerful government is engaged in a significant, global campaign of suppression and "struggle" (to quote Chinese authorities). My experience is that vandalism and abuse to Falun Gong pages occurs far more frequently by editors who are antagonistic towards Falun Gong (this is true of all confirmed sockpuppets I have encountered on these pages, for instance). Generally it is easily dealt with through existing remedies.

I am not opposed to protecting or semi-protecting all these pages—it would reduce the need to patrol for vandals—but I haven't seen any evidence that it's necessary at the current time. With the exception of new editors (and one of the parties named in this dispute), everyone else tends to be quite circumspect about making significant or potentially controversial changes. Already, the norm on the Falun Gong articles is to discuss proposed edits before making them and to attempt to establish consensus or agreement. Homunculus (duihua) 21:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I had thought that my comment above made it clear that I thought there were significant differences between Scientology and FG. I thought I even pointed them out, although, evidently, not clearly enough. Or, I suppose, alternately, the opportunity to soapbox just couldn't be passed up. I acknowledge I haven't really dealt with the articles much lately, so it may be true that sockpuppet POV pushers might be dealt with otherwise, although they may not be the only POV pushers. The one advantage to full protection, however, would be ending edit warring and ensuring that chagnes were agreed upon. In a previous Macedonia dispute here, ArbCom selected a group of highly regarded independent editors to make a short term decision about a matter, based on arguments put forward by those who disagreed about it. Something like that might work here. Alternately, some sort of ArbCom approved dispute resolution process could be started here, as has been done before with, for instance, WP:RFC/AAT. John Carter (talk) 23:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thanks for the clarification. I think your proposals would be fine if we deem that it's necessary—there's nothing objectionable about ensuring consensus for changes, or with initiating a dispute resolution processes. But as I said, most editors already apply on a consensus model. Homunculus (duihua) 23:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals by User:Shrigley

Proposed principles

Purpose of Wikipedia

1) Wikipedia is a project to create a high-quality, free-content, neutral encyclopedia. Use of the site for other purposes—including, but not limited to, advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, and political or ideological struggle—is prohibited.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Neutral point of view and undue weight

2) All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, with all relevant points of view represented in reasonable proportion to their importance and relevance to the subject-matter of the article. Undue weight should not be given to aspects which are peripheral to the topic. Relying on synthesized claims, poor sources, or other "original research", is also contrary to this principle.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

No objections, this is reasonable. Homunculus (duihua) 21:31, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Advocacy

3) Wikipedia is not a venue for advocating or advancing a viewpoint or position. Editors should ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

All parties seem to agree on this principle and on their own adherence to it, even if they accuse others of violating it. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support the basic idea, though there are different ways to phrase the same principle. This might better be classified under NPOV, or something.Homunculus (duihua) 21:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Biographies of living people

4) It is a core policy of the encyclopedia that Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively, with a high regard for accuracy and neutrality, using only high quality sources. BLP articles may never be used as a vehicle for aggrandising or diminishing the subject. Articles must use high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Colipon’s evidence highlighted BLP as a concern for Jiang Zemin and Bo Xilai. At AE, Colipon highlighted BLP’s applicability to John Liu. TSTF’s AE evidence applied BLP to Sima Nan, and Homunculus’s evidence applied it to Gail Rachlin, while Homunculus was warned in accordance with BLPSE for his editing. Suffice it to say, BLP seems to be a concern for all parties in this dispute. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think the most problematic BLP article right now is probably John Liu, who is a politician running for office in the United States. Colipon+(Talk) 00:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Tendentious editing

5) Users who disrupt the editing of articles by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing may be banned from the affected articles, or in extreme cases from the site, either by community consensus or by the Arbitration Committee.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

A large part of Ohconfucius’s, Colipon’s, and TheSoundAndTheFury’s evidence concerns allegations of sustained POV editing. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Single-purpose accounts

6) Accounts whose contributions focus on only a single narrow topic area, especially one of heated dispute, can be banned if their behaviour is disruptive to the project, for instance if they persistently engage in edit wars or in POV advocacy that serves to inflame editorial conflicts.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Counterproposal to Colipon’s “zero-tolerance” measure. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with H and TSTF as single-purpose accounts if their edits were sufficiently neutral that nobody could divine POV bias. However, the apparent narrow focus of their accounts is an aggravating factor to the “POV advocacy”. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Expert editors

7) Expert editors are welcome on Wikipedia, including expert editors with a professional or commercial interest in the subject of articles they edit. However, the guidelines concerning conflicts of interest must be observed where applicable, and expert editors must at all times avoid editing (or appearing to edit) the encyclopaedia in order to promote their own professional or commercial interest.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

In light of the “finding of fact” that Homunculus has a professional COI. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whilst in agreement with this principle, I do not believe Homunculus necessarily qualifies as a "expert editor" any more than "the next man", because you can claim to be anyone in this virtual environment. For all we know, 'she' could be David Kilgour or Gail Rachlin, but I won't speculate. I would also refer to my statement elsewhere in this workshop. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

As I have stated elsewhere on this page, I do not believe that the evidence has clearly indicated Homunculus has acted in a way which would involve COI. Having said that, I have no objections to the inclusion of this as an acknowledge of Homonculus's basically being an expert and as indication that we very much want those who have a degree of expertise in subjects to contribute to wikipedia. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fair criticism

8) Editors are encouraged to engage in frank discussion of matters affecting the project, and are encouraged to share even those facts and opinions which demonstrate the shortcomings of the project, its policies, its decision making structure, and its leaders. Such discourse is limited by the expectation that even difficult situations will be resolved in a dignified fashion, and by policies which prohibit behavior such as personal attacks and legal threats. Editors who have genuine grievances against others are expected to use the dispute resolution mechanism rather than engage in unbridled criticism across all available forums. (From Civility enforcement)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Mostly an affirmation that Colipon’s proposals for some kind of moderated edit regime around Falun Gong pages are not inappropriate soapboxing, but constructive dialogue about Wikipedia as a project. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Wikipedia is not a battleground

9) Wikipedia is a reference work. Use of the site for ideological struggle accompanied by harassment of opponents is extremely disruptive.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Personal attacks

10) The prohibition against personal attacks applies equally to all Wikipedians. It is as unacceptable to attack a user with a history of blocks or sanctions as it is to attack any other user. Wikipedia encourages a positive online community: personal attacks are contrary to this spirit and damage the work of building an encyclopedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Mostly a response to H’s attacks against other editors (e.g. [32] “Another editor (who does not exactly have clean hands with respect to this namespace—blocks for edit warring, warnings for outside canvassing...) has commented.... I have never been sanctioned or blocked, which is more than could be said for either of the two editors who have argued for my ban.”)

I don't want to get into an analysis of evidence here, but the comment you're quoting was made in the appropriate forum. In an AE hearing, it's fair game to point out if someone has been blocked or banned in the past, or if they don't have clean hands. Homunculus (duihua) 21:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unclean hands, yes, but the big red warning on top of AE states, "Most editors under ArbCom sanction are neither trolls nor vandals and should be treated with the same respect as any other editor. We should still assume good faith.... Messages posted here that egregiously violate Wikipedia's civility or personal attacks policies will be redacted and may be deleted". Editors should perhaps apply a higher standard of civility to the arbitration family of pages. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Gaming the system

11) Using Wikipedia policies and guidelines in bad faith to thwart the aims of Wikipedia and the process of communal editorship deliberately is gaming, and a disruptive abuse of process. Activities such as coordinating around policy such as the revert rules, or any other attempt to subvert the spirit of any policy or process in order to further a dispute is disruptive.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Partially a response to H and TSTF’s cooperative reverting in my evidence analysis, and ‘patrolling’ in Colipon’s evidence. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Users religious background and neutrality

12) Editors with a religious or sectarian background are encouraged to edit from a Neutral Point of View, presenting the point of view they have knowledge of through their experience and culture without aggressively pushing their particular religious point of view by emphasizing it or minimizing or excluding other points of view. (Adapted from Armenia-Azerbaijan 2)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I articulate a similar principle in my proposals above, though with one difference: this standard applies both to people with a religious interest in the topic, and those with a nationalist or ethnic interest in the topic. All are welcome, and all should be mindful of adhering to a NPOV.Homunculus (duihua) 21:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Locus of dispute

1) The current dispute revolves around various topics related to Falun Gong, its suppression, and its relationship to individuals within the Chinese government.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Persistent disruption

2) The collaborative editing environment on Falun Gong-related pages has been dysfunctional for several years. A series of editors have behaved poorly, some of whom are no longer active. The problems are demonstrated by the fact that Talk:Falun Gong has 37 archive pages. Extensive and lively talkpage discussion on an article may sometimes reflect active, productive collaborative editing by engaged and knowledgeable editors happily working together—but not in this case. Rather, these talkpage archives reflect a miserable history of talkpage misuse and disruption, fully consistent with the troubled history of the article itself. (From Shakespeare authorship question)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I do not feel the talk pages have been subject to disruption per se. But in the history of Falun Gong articles, the weight of talk page archives is more symptomatic of verbose lawyering, and people talking past one another. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On a whole, I do not find the environment dysfunctional. Many of the articles in this space are in rather good shape, and generally on a trajectory of improvement. The behaviors of particular editors is problematic. But as I've written before, the behavior of a couple editors should not cast a pall on the entire namespace, where most editors (even those who disagree) are collegial, content-oriented, and operate on a consensus model. Homunculus (duihua) 08:30, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Failure of previous arbitration

3) The remedies imposed by the Arbitration Committee in the Falun Gong 1 case have failed to effectively resolve the various concerns raised regarding the editing in this topic area, leading ultimately to the filing of this request for arbitration.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

In my view, we should be very focused on how to prevent the same failures from occurring again. It is in none of our interests to deal with another FLG arb case in five years. As long as the real-world need exists, Falun Gong advocacy is not just going to go away. We will need to put serious thought into how to go about achieving this. Colipon+(Talk) 00:47, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~It appears that Colipon's goal is to make what he characterizes as "Falun Gong advocacy" go away forever.~~ I have interpreted the above statement by Colipon, taken in the context of his other comments here, to suggest that the editor is looking to permanently rid the project of what he calls "Falun Gong advocacy." I believe this is deeply problematic and counter to the values and principles of the encyclopedia, particularly due to the highly problematic manner in which Colipon has defined "Falun Gong advocacy." For example, on the evidence page, Colipon defined as a Falun Gong activist anyone who favored the inclusion of the reliably sourced content seen here. In his AE, the kind of qualities he identifies as telltale evidence of a "Falun Gong advocate" are people who employ academic sources, or who are discerning in employing academic sources. My interpretation of Colipon's comments across this page leads me to believe that it does not matter how policy-compliant other editors are, how civil, how broad their scope of editing, how well their edits represent the discourse in reliable sources, or how much good content they produce: if they are active on the Falun Gong namespace and do not adhere to the "right" point of view, they are liable to be labelled Falun Gong activists and indefinitely banned from all China-related articles. It appears to me that the users are seeking to craft principles that would have the permanent effect of making a particular point of view verboten on Wikipedia. Nevermind that it may be the point of view that aligns with the best reliable sources on the subject.Homunculus (duihua) 12:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As a veteran editor, I am not stupid enough to make strong statements without ample evidence to support it. It is not just POV-pushing that is problematic, but POV-pushing that is similar in tone, style, and purpose as the 'official' positions of a real-life advocacy group that is most troublesome. I am very clear about the similarities between problematic users' edits with Falun Gong's official positions. Colipon+(Talk) 13:13, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My purpose is to build a high-quality encyclopedia and work collaboratively with other users. To do this, I follow the best reliable sources, and work very hard to ensure that I give representation to different views in proportion to their prominence and notability in the scholarly and journalistic literature. You have not, and would not, be able to present compelling evidence that this is not the case. Colipon, I think it's possible that part of the problem is that you find the reliable source literature itself to be problematic; you have said as much before (that the media discourse on Falun Gong is, in your view, too sympathetic. Ohconfucius has written similarly that scholars on Falun Gong are "apologists" for the practice, etc. If—and only if—you want me to, I will provide the diffs showing this), and you have expressed opinions that are not supported by the reliable sources. Perhaps this is something to reflect on.Homunculus (duihua) 13:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC) Also, as you will see in my response to your AE, which I linked on the evidence page, you made a number of very strong accusatory statements that had no supporting evidence at all, and for which no evidence could be found. I hope the arbitrators take note of this. Homunculus (duihua) 07:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, that is not the case, I have stated multiple times that I myself am sympathetic to Falun Gong, do not support its suppression etc. Colipon+(Talk) 13:49, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I think you must be referring to my comments about your clear preference for Danny Schechter's writing. Let's all be reminded that Schechter is not a recognised scholar in any meaningful definition, although Falun Gong apologists might want to hold out his views, interpretations and opinions as "scholarly research", but his work is so full of bias and rhetoric that no self-respecting scholar would employ. If I have impugned the integrity or reputation of any bona fide scholar, then I would appreciate knowing about it, and I will issue an appropriate retraction or apology. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since you asked, I was referring to this comment, where you write that "Academics are on the whole neutral or are FG apologists." But this is pretty consistent with several other statements you've made at various times. Homunculus (duihua) 03:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That was way back in July 2009, before I started reading academic sources closely rather than just studying snippets cited. In retrospect, that statement was inaccurate, but I don't think I owe anyone any apologies. In light of new experience of the subtle and sometimes not so subtle rose-coloured view of expert opinions projected by FLG devotees and their associated cherry-picking of the research of same, I should have said that "'Academics', as cited by Falun Gong advocates, are on the whole neutral or are FG apologists." The one 'academic' I most likely had in mind was Schechter, and that was before I realised he wasn't one. Clearly, even one of the most authoritative academics whose observations or apparent lack of criticism I had noted finally came out and "declared for the opposition". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try not to misrepresent the views of scholars. David Ownby has not "declared for the opposition," and the quote you link to says no such thing. For the record, Ownby has on several occasions provided expert testimony in Falun Gong's favor. I do not think his writings could be reasonably seen as expressing support for the Chinese government in any way. Try to be careful. Homunculus (duihua) 04:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, he didn't declare for the CPC, and I'm sorry that you seem to have read that as my implication. Once again, Homunculus appears to be stuck in that 'FLG versus CPC dichotomy' that Ownby mentioned, that if you're not 'with' the FLG, you're effectively siding with the CPC; I was simply implying that one could simply be pro- or anti-FLG. It's all credit to Ownby, who demonstrated that he is indeed a serious scholar (independent, objective, and eschews being influenced), that he came out with a definitive statement about his "unpleasant and unproductive" working relationship with Falun Gongsters post 2002. Note that his statement is the closest any scholar, leaving aside Singer and Rahn, has ever come to denouncing the movement as "a cult". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are again engaging in an unreasonable form of guilt by association in an attempt to ascribe to me world views that I do not possess. I find there to be a vexatious quality in what you're doing here, and I think you need to stop misrepresenting my beliefs. Also, please tell me: in what publication (and on which page) does Ownby do this? Because I've read his just about all his writings, and never seen anything approximating this claim (to the contrary, in the reliable sources sitting in front of me, Ownby states pretty unequivocally that Falun Gong does not possess the characteristics of a cult. Indeed, in the very same article you have quoted on your user space, he dismisses this characterization as inaccurate). Homunculus (duihua) 07:40, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you implied I said Ownby was endorsing the Chinese state's actions when I did not. I merely stated how one could be easily mistaken if one adopted the FLG world view. Ownby's quote comes from this publication. You could have done the search yourself with any part of the quote. It took me about 22 seconds, but I can only get a snippet view. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to argue back and forth, but you have misrepresent people, so I am going to set the record straight. You said that Ownby had "declared for the opposition" on the Falun Gong issue. The opposition to Falun Gong is reasonably understood to mean the Chinese government—that is where opposition to the practice comes from in the real world. I made clear that Ownby has never approached endorsing the views of the Chinese government, not ever come close to 'denouncing' Falun Gong as a cult, as you've claimed. You then twisted my attempt to clarify this into another guilt by association tactic to ascribe to me a "Falun Gong worldview" that I do not possess (and that probably only exists in your mind; the worldview of millions of people is never monolithic). This is insulting, and you've done it repeatedly.

I don't see things as black and white on the subject of Falun Gong, and if someone were to read my comments in talk pages and my analyses of evidence, they would find them to be nuanced and substantive. This stands in marked contrast to your own comments, such as the declaration you put on your user page that you are not interested in "bickering of whether FG was being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party or whether "Falun Gong Is a Cult."" First, no reliable source one would ever deny that Falun Gong is persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party, and serious scholars—including Ownby—uniformly say that the practice is not a "cult". The framing of the issue in this manner demonstrates, I think, a profound lack of sophistication in approaching this subject.

You have misrepresented my views, and you've (quite badly) misrepresented a scholar's views. A scholar whose article you apparently do not even have access to. Your comments here and elsewhere suggests to me that you do not have a very sound understanding of the corpus of literature. I actually do have the journal article you were quoting from, so I think I may have a better grasp of the context. I've also read nearly all of Ownby's other writings on the subjects, and it's not apparent that you have done same. The quote you are referring to is not Ownby endorsing the view that FLG is a "cult," as you claim. He is saying that, for people who were already predisposed to view Falun Gong this way, the notion is unfortunately (but wrongly) reinforced by the "dualistic" attitude that he says some practitioners came to adopt as a response to the persecution by Chinese authorities. That is the broader context. In the very same article, Ownby describes how Falun Gong does not display the characteristics of a 'cult.' This is something that Ownby repeats clearly in nearly all his writings, testimonies, and interviews. To quote from his book, "the entire issue of the supposed cultic nature of Falun Gong was a red herring from the beginning, cleverly exploited by the Chinese state to blunt the appeal of Falun Gong and the effectiveness of the group's activities outside of China."

As a person who strives for nuanced representations of things, it's quite worrying to me that you just draw these conclusions about a scholar's views based on one paragraph that you read out of context. This is also illustrative of a broader problem: yourself, Shrigley, and Colipon have charged me with altering the balance of articles in favor of Falun Gong and marginalizing negative views. You have built your entire case against me on this premise and sought for me to be indefinitely banned. But I edit based on extensive reading of the literature in order to represent viewpoints in proportion to their notability and prominence. You do not seem familiar with the literature, and in this case at least, you have drawn a rash, reductionist, and false conclusion about the views of a scholar on Falun Gong when it suited you. Given that, I don't think you can be considered a very good judge of whether my edits in this area comply with NPOV. Homunculus (duihua) 13:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your "you think you are an good editor but you don't know Jack" rant is really quite the most impressive personal attack I have seen on the page, and it's quite clear that I've really touched an extremely exposed nerve. I think I'll rest my case and go do something useful from now on. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- PS, I'm really done here. I'm no longer going to put up with this abuse any more; I've already wasted too much time and energy on this time sump. My self-imposed topic ban on FLG articles begins here and now. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a general note: I am not sure where or how my statement was a personal attack or how it speaks to "authoritarian oversight," but I apologize nonetheless if it was inappropriate. Ohconfucius has misrepresented my views and beliefs repeatedly, attempting to ascribe to me what he calls "the Falun Gong worldview." He has done this after I have made it very clear that I consider it inappropriate. He also misrepresented David Ownby's views, so I felt I should clarify things. I don't mean to belittle editors because they haven't read all these articles and books, or don't have access to a research databases. Editors don't need to read everything, but they ought to make efforts to acquaint themselves with the material so they can support the assertions they make about scholars's opinions. Under the circumstance that Ohconfucius, Colipon and Shrigley have actively argued that I should be indefinitely banned for "POV-pushing," I think it it pretty germane to point out that they don't seem to be well acquainted with the scholarly literature; that fact really does hinder their ability to make assessments about my compliance with NPOV. Homunculus (duihua) 17:08, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please stop referring to "Ohconfucius, Colipon, and Shrigley" as if we are one single user with the same opinions on everything? Although you have tried to discredit Ohconfucius's edits (which have repeatedly been recognized by the community's highest honor) in a highly insulting manner by saying that he has "a profound lack of sophistication in approaching this subject",[33] you have provided no evidence that Colipon or I share Ohconfucius's interpretation of Ownby's scholarship. (Note: this is not an invitation for you to make similar speculations about our intellectual sophistication.) Shrigley (talk) 18:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shrigley, that wasn't my intent, and I did not mean to insinuate that you share Ohconfucius's views on Ownby's scholarship. Also, I did not say that Ohconfucius has a "profound lack of sophistication." I tried to ensure that my comment was not personalized. I wrote that that manner of framing the issue demonstrates a lack of sophistication. It's a subtle difference, maybe. Homunculus (duihua) 19:39, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Homunculus's history

4) Homunculus (talk · contribs) registered an account in March 2010, and since then has focused his edits heavily on the political aspects of Falun Gong. The articles have ranged from the elements of Falun Gong's doctrine, to biographies of Chinese officials accused of mistreating Falun Gong, and to other Chinese dissident groups with which Falun Gong has a "de-facto media alliance". Homunculus has a limited number of contributions to other topics on Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The phrase “de facto media alliance” comes from H’s own edits: c.f. [34][35].

She has edited 500 articles and created over a dozen... I don't know how it can be said that she has "a limited number of contributions to other topics." These proposals are really something. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, this is really getting out of hand. I edit on topics related to China. That's a very broad topic area. Homunculus (duihua) 21:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You obviously don't edit topics related to Chinese cuisine or calligraphy. You have previously stated that: "I am more interested in the political aspects of the Falungong issue."[36] and have admitted that you don't edit articles outside "Chinese politics and history"[37] (in this comment you also claim, "My interest in editing the Falun Gong namespace is academic; I am an expert in comparative Chinese politics, state-society relations and human rights.") There are plenty of editors who edit even on Chinese political issues and don't touch Falun Gong once. Since your registration, you have been involved in every significant discussion about Falun Gong on talk pages, RFCs, and AEs, and little else (cf. Ohconfucius's analysis). Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence does not support this either. An appropriate statement of fact could say that I am active on the Falun Gong namespace; that I have contributed substantially to the building of articles in that space; and that my involvement has resulted in these pages becoming more well-sourced, complete and stable. As to the claim above that I contribute to "little else," I think it's time you stop misrepresenting me in this forum. My editing history does not support that claim at all. Homunculus (duihua) 12:49, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Homunculus has a conflict of interest

5) Homunculus has confirmed that they have professional interest in the topic,[38] and has at times edited in such a way that this interest has compromised collaborative editing.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The relevant quote from the diff: [39] “[M]y real life sometimes overlaps with my editing interests on Falun Gong and other issues. I work as a research analyst focused on China, and I sometimes publish in scholarly journals and newspapers on issues related Falun Gong... A number of the scholars and the journalists whose names appear as reliable sources on Falun Gong and other contemporary China-related pages are people I know in real life. I also know (and like) both Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese government officials in real life. My experiences bias me in certain ways.... I’ve come to know several Falun Gong practitioners, including some who have been imprisoned and tortured (as well as their lawyers).... I respect and even admire them, and respect their right to dignity and expression.... the notion that Falun Gong adherents in China are not mistreated....well, I find this unsettling at a personal level” Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's unclear where the interests are supposed to conflict. Which interest of Homunculus's conflicts with Wikipedia's principles? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of the conflict of interest policy is that it is not considered a conflict of interest for experts or scholars to edit articles related to their field of expertise. In either case, insofar as this may be a conflict of interest, I've declared it openly. No evidence has been presented that my professional affiliations have compromised my ability to engage in collaborative editing (I don't think there's any evidence at all that I don't engage in collaborate editing). Homunculus (duihua) 21:49, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You say yourself that "My experiences bias me in certain ways", and the direction of the bias can be discerned by your subsequent statement, "[I] respect [Falun Gongers'] right to dignity and expression" and your apparent declaration that you cannot emotionally detach yourself from your edits, "the notion that Falun Gong adherents in China are not mistreated....well, I find this unsettling at a personal level". Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First, you seem to have misquoted me and altered the meaning of my words. Second, the very next sentence was "I don’t let personal disagreements stop me from trying to collaborate with these editors, or prevent me from having civil discussions on the content." My editing history provides proof of this: even when working with editors who hold profoundly different personal opinions, I strive to be fair, civil, and content-oriented. It is valuable for all editors to try to be aware of their personal biases, and be mindful of how they might be affected by those biases, particularly in content disagreements. I try to do this, and try to be open about where I think my judgement may be somehow colored. Homunculus (duihua) 03:51, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

I would oppose this particular statement. Homunculus has stated clearly that s/he has made serious efforts not to refer to their own work in articles, and I have no reason to doubt that. However, I also believe that the comments quoted above could not unreasonably be used to support the contention that Homonculus may have a POV on the topic which could be potentially problematic. John Carter (talk) 21:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homunculus's editing

6) Homunculus's contributions to Wikipedia concerning Falun Gong, the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese dissident groups can reasonably be perceived as consistently reflecting negative views of the Chinese government and Communist Party. (Colipon’s evidence, AE evidence, Ohconfucius’s evidence) There is a strong and persistent tendency to depict both individual government officials and the government as a whole in an unfavorable and/or stereotyped fashion. For example, Homunculus's edits and articles often give undue weight to the subject's relation to Falun Gong, and the undue weight is almost invariably placed so as to reflect poorly on the subject of the article.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

It'd have to be shown that her editing gave undue weight according to the weight accorded to the various viewpoints in reliable sources. In other words, you're asking for judgement on a question of content. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:17, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am asking for a judgment on a question of Homunculus's behavior. To say that H "added undue weight about Falun Gong on Bo Xilai" might be a content judgment, but to note that the sweep of H's edits serve to aggrandize information about the "persecution of Falun Gong" on peripherally-related subjects is a conduct judgment. The statement about undue weight could be adjusted, but the key is the consistent unbalancing of articles' POV in one direction. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no actual evidence of what you allege. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 04:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I need to refer to my evidence at AE. I think the choice of sources is indicative of the editing bias of Homunculus. It seems like she may have heard about certain allegations that she wants proven, and in her attempt to cite it finds that her cupboard is bare. She chooses the only source with the given assertion, the dubiousness of which I already pointed out. This is neither logical nor serious avenues for a researcher. This desperate scratching around for signs that fit the picture she wants painted, together with the convenient removal of paragraphs of sourced content critical of the movement under guise of 'cleanup', is more consistent of behaviour of a partisan seeking to advocate or advance a certain point of view. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Ohconfucius, I don't desire to engage in lengthy discussions of content here, but will make a couple comments. First, the arbs may like to read the page you're referring to, which I have written almost in full. I believe that it is a fairly even-handed approach to the subject, and represents a significant improvement over the previous version (which might generously have been called C-class). Colipon raised some complaints about my content choices in his AE, and I responded to some of these in my response, which I linked to on the evidence page. I would have been happy to answer any other content questions on the article talk page itself, and I believe that I could have provided sound rationales for any of my edits. If my explanations were not satisfactory, I would be willing to compromise. In the AE, you brought up a concern with one of the sources I used in this edit.[40] I had preserved this content from the previous page, the only reference used were to Falun Gong websites. Deeming that this was not ideal, but not wanting to delete the only information about Falun Gong in Latin America, I tried to find an alternate sources. One of those was the article from the Argentina Independent (I don't speak much spanish, so I had to go with an english-language source). If you would like to argue that it's not a good enough source, I would be open to that, and I would hope we could find a better one. Since you've brought this up, I'll point out that I found your comment in the AE to be somewhat problematic. There, you wrote that the article in the Argentina Independent is "almost certainly written by a practitioner or by some professional outfit employed by someone intimately involved with the movement," but you don't support this assertion very well. You have made similar comments about other news articles that were somewhat positive towards Falun Gong, suggesting that the pieces must have been paid for, but not supporting this with evidence. I don't think it's appropriate to do this. Homunculus (duihua) 04:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's funny that in the above, you emphasise that it's a content matter (imply that it's outside the scopr of Arbcom) whilst my actions are 'behavioural' (i.e. inside the scopr of Arbcom). I did not dispute that your revision is superior in terms of prose and structure compared to what was there before. My criticism was of your action to dramatically shift the bias by selective removal of relevant reliably-sourced information. As to the Argentine Independent source, my comments apply. You actually admit to looking for a source to support your assertion. I seem to recall you have in the past removed assertions with citations of similar dubious quality... so why spare this one? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is indeed my understanding that this process is supposed to focus on behavioral issues, not content disputes. I pointed out a behavior issue, which is that you've made a number of rather questionable suggestions that living persons off wikipedia are engaged in paid lobbying, advertorial writing, or paid promotional writing without evidence (three times in the last couple weeks). I wouldn't have pointed this out again if you hadn't called attention to it. I think it's something you should be careful to avoid.
There is a venue to raise content issues: it's on article talk pages. If you had raised specific questions about my content choices on the talk page (hopefully in good faith), I would have done my best to answer them and work together. On this article's talk page, you raised one very general point. I answered in a reasonably detailed manner, and then added "If you have some specific questions or ideas on how the page can be improved, please do share them." You never responded. But now you're arguing I should be banned over content disagreements that you never elaborated on.
I have reasons for all the things I did, and I believe my reasons are defensible. This includes my choices to delete material critical of Falun Gong, as well as my choices to delete material favorable to Falun Gong. The number of sources I actually removed in the process of the rewrite was very minimal. Please rest assured that my overriding intention was not to tip the POV balance in one way or another: that's not how I look at things.
Your above statement misrepresents me. I did not "actually admit to looking for a source to support [my] assertion." The assertion was not mine to support; information on this anecdote was inherited from the previous version of the article. I was simply looking for better sources describing the event. If the sources I found contained different accounts of events, I would have modified the content accordingly (I did do this, actually). Homunculus (duihua) 07:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

None of the Falun Gong articles are on my watchlist since early 2010, and it's going to stay that way. Well maybe it's my fault for not watching the pages and then editing the articles concerned. But I would remind you that in our model, silence does not necessarily imply consensus. This has resulted in you editing largely unchecked: you commenting on a given issue, TSTF coming it to agree with you and then swiftly execute the change by return of post. Let me also observe that I have noticed occasions where, to your credit, you appear to moderate the more radical impulses of your alleged co-conspirator. Altough this is good, it's not a substitute for the refined skill of writing for the opposition on a sustained and systematic basis.
Our model means that any change can be challenged at any time. Per your modus operandi, whilst some changes are obvious, it's only over time that the pattern of serious bias emerges, and where what would otherwise have been a content issue becomes an apparent POV pushing concern. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As a general comment on this proposed finding of fact: findings of fact are supposed to follow from the evidence, and the evidence does not support this claim. Colipon provided very little in the way of concrete evidence, and at no point was he able to demonstrate that my edits on topic related to China were not generally representative of the discourse in reliable sources. Although he made numerous assertions that I engage in "polemical" or emotive anti-CCP rhetoric, I don't think the diffs really support that. In several instances, his AE cases unambiguously misrepresented my edits, which should be considered a pretty serious problem. Ohconfucius presented a quantitative analysis of my edits, which cannot be used to make a qualitative assessment.

I think it's worth pointing out again some of my contributions. Here are some of my major edits to Bo Xilai: [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] They are very well supported by sources, and I think very even-handed. (It may be worth noting that Shrigley and Ohconfucius made very minimal contributions to this page, unless it was to delete or misrepresent reliably sourced information related to Falun Gong). Here are some other pages which I've recently created and written: Chongqing model, Three Stresses campaign, Informal economy of China, Barefoot lawyer, National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, etc. I do not think that, upon reading these pages, a reasonable person would conclude that I have a serious WP:NPOV problem. Homunculus (duihua) 07:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Homunculus's conduct

7) Homunculus has made a series of increasingly uncivil comments and unsupported allegations of bias and wrongdoing against fellow editors with whom he was in editorial disagreement (Shrigley's evidence).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is based on the diffs you presented on the evidence page of "personal attacks." As I wrote on the evidence page, with the exception of the very first comment (which I retracted and apologized for), I don't think anything else constitutes a personal attack. If the arbitrators reviewing those diffs feel differently, I would hope they could let me know so I can improve. Homunculus (duihua) 22:05, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This principle does not mention "personal attacks", which might have a stricter meaning under WP:NPA than in normal English usage, but "uncivil comments and unsupported allegations of bias and wrongdoing", which are certainly shown by my evidence. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Homunculus previously admonished

8) Homunculus was previously admonished by an administrator for violating the biography of living persons policy.[51][52]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Umm, wasn't that an honest mistake that she later explained and apologized about? Homunculus may be able to clarify briefly. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, I made a stupid but honest mistake of writing that a Chinese official was "found guilty" rather than "indicted," and I corrected it as soon as it was pointed out. Also this was a year and a half ago, and I learned from the error to exercise greater caution. Relevant diffs here: [53] and the admin noting that the concern was adequately alleviated: [54] Homunculus (duihua) 21:43, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This finding of fact would not be necessary and discarded on grounds of time if H's subsequent edits to BLPs were found unobjectionable on grounds of NPOV, V, and NOR, but unfortunately these concerns have come up again in the evidence around H's editing of pages like John Liu, Bo Xilai, and Jiang Zemin. Shrigley (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is really extraordinary. No evidence has been presented that I have breached NPOV, V, or NOR on any or these pages. No one other than yourself, Colipon, or Ohconfucius has declared my edits to these pages objectionable. I wrote most of the article on Bo Xilai, and (whether deserved or not), it achieved GA status. The content I wrote at John Liu was scrupulously cited to eminently reliable sources, and I actually fixed BLP errors. I had concerns that I may have given too much weight to criticisms, and I noted that concern on the talk page, and sought another editors help to balance it out. Before that could happen, I was effectively driven away from the page by yourself and Colipon. I really hope the Arbs look at this. The extent to which you are misrepresenting me is just incredible. Homunculus (duihua) 04:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is patently false that "No one other than yourself, Colipon, or Ohconfucius has declared my edits to these pages objectionable". Both User:Ferox Seneca [55] and User:Jayen466 [56] expressed discomfort at how much you wanted to expand the "Bo Xilai as a ruthless persecutor of Falun Gong" meme; the latter explicitly noted the lack of Falun Gong coverage in reliable sources on Bo. Also, the comment[57] you seem to recast as having "driven you away from the page" was one where I pointed out that the sole editor you "sought... help to balance out" your self-admitted excessive criticism was... another editor who exclusively added negative content, including content which you acknowledge as BLP violations! Your behavior in this incident would then seem to violate your own proposed principle about "reinforc[ing] disruptive behavior by others on the basis of shared philosophical or ideological inclinations".

It is also patently false that "No evidence has been presented that [Homunculus has] breached NPOV, V, or OR on any [of] these [BLP] pages". To quote from the AE case-as-evidence[58] concerning you:

John Liu

Perhaps the most damning evidence against this user comes from an esoteric topic with which few people uninvolved with Falun Gong have an understanding. The vendetta of Falun Gong against New York City Comptroller John Liu, who it asserts is part of the Communist Party's sinister overseas "United Front" aimed at usurping power in Western governments.
After significant revisions by Homunculus, the article has effectively become an attack page, with serious undue weight given to Liu's legal travails and otherwise unsavoury aspects of Liu's life.
Despite its sourcing to RS, I reckon that its heavily biased tone and unabashed undue weight can qualify as a WP:BLP violation.

And to excerpt Colipon's evidence.

I firmly believe that only activists extremely invested in Falun Gong would push for the inclusion of FRINGE material on FLG lawsuits on articles about Chinese officials. These materials are not taken seriously by the vast majority of sources, except, of course, The Epoch Times: [59].
Of special concern is the round-the-clock patrolling of 'sensitive' FLG material and removing any edits that potentially alter POV-balance: Revision time in ([Hour]:[Minutes])

Jiang Zemin: 1:15: [60]

Using emotionally-charged language and imagery, examples include "persecution", "genocide", "torture" ([61] vs. [62])

Inserting Falun Gong lawsuit material to BLP articles of Chinese politicians (Jiang; Bo Xilai by TSTF, by H)

Attempt to undermine the undue weight clause (TSTF H).

Dig up and synthesize esoteric content to meet their ends. H: "There are reliable sources that elaborate on these allegations in more depth,"

The extent to which you are shooting yourself in the foot with these easily falsifiable blanket denials is just incredible. Shrigley (talk) 04:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homunculus, I do not suggest you respond to this. This isn't the place for discussing these content issues. It will be clear to people who look at the diffs that Shrigley has misrepresented the matter here. These proposal sections have been misused enough at this point. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 04:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, fair enough. People can check the diffs if they want; I think my earlier assertion stands. Shrigley said concerns had been raised that I violated WP:V and WP:OR on these pages, and still has not provided evidence. Homunculus (duihua) 19:42, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

This is I think not an unreasonable comment. Violations of WP:BLP, even if as Homonculus says it was a mistake and corrected and apologized for, are very serious matters. BLP is a cornerstone principle here. Having said that, it was a year and half ago, when Homonculus was a new editor, and there is not, apparently, any evidence of subsequent violations of BLP. If we dredge up every mistake every editor has ever made, particularly when they were comparatively new, I would probably have to myself retire immediately to avoid facing a site ban. John Carter (talk) 21:50, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that focusing in on this one 'incident' is not necessary. Perhaps this 'finding' can be excised in favour of a more general clause involving Homunculus' POV-editing on BLP articles such as John Liu. Colipon+(Talk) 21:54, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The BLP issue is extremely serious. I think perhaps this 'finding' could be altered to reflect Homunculus' problematic editing in all BLPs related to Falun Gong, including John Liu, Jiang Zemin, and Bo Xilai. The one point of 'admonishment' is not too important when we compare it to the alarming pattern of edits in above mentioned articles. Colipon+(Talk) 02:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TheSoundAndTheFury's history

9) A substantial focus of TheSoundAndTheFury's editing has been articles relating generally to Falun Gong. The articles have ranged from the elements of Falun Gong's doctrine to biographies of Chinese officials accused of mistreating Falun Gong.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

TheSoundAndTheFury's editing

10) TheSoundAndTheFury's contributions to Wikipedia concerning Falun Gong, the Chinese government, and the Chinese Communist Party can reasonably be perceived as consistently reflecting negative views of the Chinese government and Communist Party. (Colipon’s evidence, Ohconfucius’s evidence)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

No. That cannot be reasonably perceived. It is a question of the balance accorded to various views in reliable sources. My edits broadly reflect what the most reliable sources say about the topics that I edit, and I edit from different points of view on different topics. All I've done is edit according to my reading of the literature, and I've edited honestly and fairly. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Though this user definitely has a history of polemical emotive edits aimed at the CCP [63] [64] [65] [66], but from my analysis of his contributions to Falun Gong above, this user's edits seem more 'pro-Falun Gong' than they are 'anti-CCP', so I think the phrasing can be altered somewhat. Colipon+(Talk) 21:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You have linked to my additions of the research of Ralph Thaxton, a scholar who did in extensive work, documented in his nearly 500 page book that I read, based on interviews with dozens of survivors of the GLF and archival research. You are describing my addition of his assessment of the Great Leap Forward as "polemical emotive." Are you saying that you believe Ralph Thaxton to be a polemical and emotive scholar, and that I was wrong to add his research to Wikipedia? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There were hundreds of other quotes which could have chosen from that book... simply because it is cited to an RS does not make the edit any less disruptive. You can judge by tone, emotive phrasing, selectiveness, over-use of quotations etc., that the edit's purpose is advocacy rather than encyclopedic interest. Colipon+(Talk) 21:43, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colipon: this is why we discuss things. I don't care about those edits and I don't seek to defend them; I was very new to Wikipedia when I made them. My point is this: if it was brought to my attention on the talk page that my edits were problematic for such-and-such reason, I would listen, and I would discuss it, and I would compromise. Maybe some parts of the additions would remain, while other parts would be refactored, or whatever. I'm happy to talk about this stuff. If disagreement with my edits was brought up on the talk page, I would not suggest that the editor who pointed out their disagreement with my additions was doing so for some ulterior motive. I have always been willing to discuss what is the best way to present the material in reliable sources. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 22:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not our responsibility, or that of the larger community, to police every edit that you make for NPOV violations, especially when it takes much more time to discuss and correct an issue than it is to create one. When the community has raised sufficient concerns about the controversial nature of your editing, you are expected to engage in some self-policing, per WP:FAITACCOMPLI. Shrigley (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You ([67][68][69]) and H ([70][71][72][73]) repeatedly use the phrase "reliable sources" and assert that you edit "according to the reliable sources" as if that phrase is a talisman that will protect you from the consequences of your own behavior. First, it should be pointed out from the evidence that H and TSTF don't always follow the reliable sources: for example, H has argued [and TSTF has supported him in discussion] against reliable source information,[74] based on his own experience of "anyone who has worked in government (in the West, at least) should know" (WP:OR?). And second, claims that your edits are based on reliable sources is not an answer to charges of NPOV violations. I quote TSTF himself, who acknowledges that "Scholars and experts regularly disagree about "content," so to speak."[75] Ohconfucius got the T-square self-immmolation article to FA, which means he must have used reliable sources; but Homunculus disagreed with the POV balance according to his own selection and interpretation of sources. There is no one WP:TRUTH that can be divined by the single, correct reading of the reliable sources. Shrigley (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...which is why we discuss things, something I have always advocated and (the vast majority of the time) politely carried out. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The claim over 'reliable sources' as a talisman of protection is not new, and neither is the insistence on "content discussion". These are signature traits of previous Falun Gong SPAs to game the system. Let me quote banned Falun Gong editor Olaf Stephanos: "me and Asdfg12345 [another SPA] have always asked for sources, sources, sources, followed by rational discussion." As we can see here, the same strategy is being repeated by Users Homunculus and TSTF. Colipon+(Talk) 21:33, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that Colipon is here engaging in an appropriate form of guilt by association. He does this later on the page as well, where he attempt to link me to now-banned Falun Gong editors by pointing out that they were also very civil. My interpretation of these statements, as well as comments made in his AE, is that Colipon seems to be saying that civility, use of reliable sources, and focus on content discussions are "signature traits" of Falun Gong SPAs, that possession of these qualities is itself evidence of being a Falun Gong SPA, and that SPAs must be summarily banned. This is highly problematic. Civility, focus on content, and reliance on reliable sources is not "gaming the system." It is precisely what all editors must strive for. Homunculus (duihua) 23:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Homunculus topic-banned

1) Homunculus is indefinitely topic banned from pages related to Falun Gong and the Chinese government, broadly construed.

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Homunculus banned

2) Homunculus is indefinitely banned from English Wikipedia. After six months, he may appeal his ban to the Arbitration Committee, provided he is able to demonstrate to the Arbitration Committee that his history of disruptive conduct will not continue.

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Homunculus admonished

3) Homunculus is admonished for repeatedly personalizing disputes and engaging in uncivil conduct, personal attacks, and disruptive conduct.

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TheSoundAndTheFury topic-banned

4) TheSoundAndTheFury is indefinitely topic banned from pages related to Falun Gong and the Chinese government, broadly construed.

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TheSoundAndTheFury warned

5) TheSoundAndTheFury is warned that his contributions to discussion must reflect a better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors.

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I include TSTF’s sharp-tempered comments in this case as worthy of warning. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if I have come across as sharp-tempered in these exchanges. Whatever the outcome, I will do my best to be more receptive, tolerant, and not as sharp-tempered. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Discretionary sanctions

6) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the Chinese government and the Communist Party of China, broadly construed.

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Since there are already sanctions for the Falun Gong topic area, and since this case has had a significant amount of Falun Gong material spilling over into the broader Chinese politics area. Shrigley (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, Falun Gong activists' interests in Chinese politics is quite limited: they only focus on their 'pet subjects' like officials they accuse of genocide (Bo Xilai, Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Zhou Yongkang), "propaganda in the PRC", "Thought reform in the PRC", legal framework of the PRC, "organ transplants in the PRC", "human rights torch relay", and other such generally polemical articles consistent with their "Nine Ccommentaries" and advocacy pamphlets. They would generally not show interest towards articles somewhat removed from these topics, such as human rights in Tibet, Uyghur unrest, Wang Yang, or even Deng Xiaoping. Thus having this spill over to Chinese politics in general may be overreaching. Colipon+(Talk) 21:40, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Tend to agree with Colipon here. The number of pages which could be "broadly interpreted" as relating to the CCP government is pretty enormous, and the number of issues of any real interest to this subject rather small in comparison. Narrowing it perhaps to actions or individuals of the CCP who have had substantive impact on FG might be a bit better, but it too has problems, given the potential vagueness of any wording I can think of. Having said that, if the wording issue can be resolved, that might work better. John Carter (talk) 00:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals by User:John Carter

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Proposed findings of fact

Ohconfucius in particular has made valuable contributions to the topic

1) Several editors involved in this case, particularly User:Ohconfucius, have made significant and valuable contributions to the project and to the Falun Gong related content.

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It is my understanding that, in 2009, Ohconfucius was one of several editors who had the page Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident promoted to FA status. Also involved was the Falun Gong editor Asdfg12345, as well as SilkTork, and perhaps some others. I do not know the nature of Ohconfucius's role, as I was not involved, though I trust that your assessment is fair. In 2011, some editors made further improvements to this page, which were discussed extensively and in a substantive way. SilkTork was again involved in that process. Those editors - whose analysis of the sources, additions of valuable material, and careful determinations of due weight - also deserve acknowledgement.

It is also worth mentioning something of Ohconfucius' more recent history in this namespace, however. In the last year or more, I have not witnessed this user make substantial contributions in the Falun Gong namespace in a collaborative or collegial manner. Unfortunately, I believe the evidence I presented on the evidence page is representative of the user's behavior in this namespace in the last year or so. If counter-evidence is available that shows Ohconfucius behaving constructively and collegially over the last year to improve these pages, then I will stand corrected as only having half-described his presence on the namespace. Unfortunately I have not seen such countervailing evidence. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 19:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed. It was in large part the efforts of Ohconfucius that the only article related to this subject, the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident, has received recognition for its quality. Colipon and others contributed to it as well, and others invovled have contributed to the development of content as well, but I believe that the serious efforts he made there probably deserve particular notice. John Carter (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I participated in the FAC at the time, and thought it was a remarkable effort by Ohconfucius, given the inherent difficulties of this topic area. --J N 466 17:52, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed remedies

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Clearer guidelines regarding religious, sociological, and political controversies

1) The Arbitration Committee will call for editors to work on developing clearer guidelines regarding religious, sociological, and political controversies.

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This is a good idea overall, though in practice its implementation will be difficult. Again, due to the politicization of Wikipedia, groups with vested interests in presenting favourable portrayals of themselves, be they nationalist, religious, social, or commercial, will disrupt Wikipedia to advance their POVs. No matter what kind of rigorous guidelines are put in place, users can can work around it to get their way, as we've seen over at disputes related to PIA, climate change, Scientology, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and 'race and intelligence'.
I reckon that some editors even engage in "good-faith POV pushing", whereby they feel so strongly about a topic in their personal lives that they have made it their moral conviction to POV-push in favour of a certain group, and it is understandable that such moral rectitude justifies POV-pushing at the expense of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. There was a flair up over the Gaza flotilla raid, for example, when many editors who otherwise do not feel so strongly about the Israel-Palestine topic ended up "POV-pushing" in favour of one side or another.
If we continue to stick by our principle of "everyone can edit", then we are bound to face these problems time and again as disputes continue in the real-world. Eventually I feel like Wikipedia's authoritative oversight body must simply lock down sensitive articles from editing and allow for absolute administrative oversight and professional copyediting/article re-writes, and ask that all editorial changes be suggested on the talk page first. Colipon+(Talk) 23:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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OK, this is right now a bit of a wee pathological fixation of mine. There are at least a few articles and topics out there which suffer from some of the problems this content has, specifically, that there is a good deal of rather clearly biased material available on some topics, much of which is rather clearly biased itself. And, like in this case, there often isn't a lot of clear "academic" evidence on several of the points involved. Part of the problem I perceive here is that, basically, editors from any number of opinions can select sources which support their own personal content goals, and it's hard for anyone to point toward anything clearly in the guidelines which would indicate what should be done. Yeah, I'm one of the editors who started the Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style, and I acknowledge I am completely out of my field in doing so, and it rather obviously shows there. I do however believe some arguments in these fields could be solved by clearer guidelines. In this case, that pretty much means guidelines written by people who have some talented in the field, of which I am not one. John Carter (talk) 22:57, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposals by My very best wishes

I am sorry for not following the format. Here are my suggestions, very briefly.

The actual locus of the dispute is Chinese politics, which involves Confucius Institutes, Propaganda by China and Falun Gong.
User PCPP should be site banned if you really want to help AE administrators.
Users Shrigley and Colipon show inability to productively interact with users with different POV (they make a lot of unsupported personal accusations, even on this page - see second paragraph here). They should be topic banned from FG or better all Chinese politics subjects.
I do see some problematic edits by other participants, but taking into account the contentious nature of the subject and difficult editing atmosphere in this area, I do not think this require sanctions beyond perhaps admonishment. However I am sure that Arbcom will examine all Evidence related to this case and can make correct judgement. My very best wishes (talk) 16:18, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by parties

It might be worth clarifying that MVBW has no prior involvement in Falun Gong or, to my knowledge, anything related to Chinese politics. I also don't think the user had any prior interaction with the parties named here. He/she followed us here from AE and took an interest in the case. I note this only because some of the other users here seen to have questioned the editor's reasons for involvement[76] (I'm not sure what to make of that conversation, actually).

As to these findings, it may be right that the locus of dispute is more accurately described as Chinese politics, and some of these problems have spilled over onto pages related to China, though not as intensely. It's probably not feasible or desirable to expand the scope of this case, but it's a fair observation. No comment on the other proposals. Homunculus (duihua) 21:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It may be worth noting that, this user has, since June 9, "retired" a total of seven times. [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] Colipon+(Talk) 05:50, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I probably must explain. First of all, judging from this diff, an involved administrator asks one of the sides to look at the hidden POV or other agenda behind my comments (he tells: it certainly be of interest to the ArbCom if his actions might be in some way seen as a violation of previous sanctions). Sure, everyone has some POV, but I am the only editor here who is completely uninvolved in this subject area. Second, I do have serious problems with continuing participation in the project. The problems are of personal nature, outside the project, and certainly not related to this case. My very best wishes (talk) 11:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are also I think the only person involved in this discussion who has been placed under signifcant sanctions before. And the nature of your comments do reveal a rather significant bias against an individual editor, specifically PCPP, which have, to the best of my knowledge, not been particularly well substantiated, although I could be wrong. One might comment on perhaps some problematic edit history of your own, might one not? And while we do AGF regarding your statements, we I believe should also note your own recent edits, particularly as they relate to other previous ArbCom and recent activity at various arbitration and administrative noticeboards. If there is personal acrimonies involved, as would certainly be possible regarding PCPP, who had not even been discussed in the current arbitration until MVBW started filing comments about him, that might be relevant as well. John Carter (talk) 21:37, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in that case, I must tell that

I never had any content disputes or collaborations with PCPP; I never talked with him before beginning of this case; there are no personal acrimonies;
The multiple topic ban violations by PCPP (as outlined here) is not my conclusion, but conclusion made by at least four different uninvolved AE administrators;
I would like hear what PCPP thinks about it, and therefore proposed above to post his evidence and response;
I singled him out because after looking at several recent AE cases, it became clear to me that PCPP was the most significant and obvious cause of trouble in this subject area; I provided my evidence to help AE administrators who spent way too much time dealing with PCPP;
No, the entire section in Evidence by Shrigley [84] was dedicated to PCPP prior to my submission of Evidence, so he was already discussed. PCPP now appears in numerous statements and diffs in Evidence section.
No, I am not a Falun Gong practitioner, and I do not have any real life connection with Falun Gong. My very best wishes (talk) 22:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals by User:TheSoundAndTheFury

Proposed findings of fact

Ohconfucius has edit warred

1) Ohconfucius has engaged in multiple edit wars with little to no talk page discussion, including two recent 3RR violations on topics related to Falun Gong.[85][86][87][88][89][90]/[91][92].

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(Note: user has previously been blocked for edit warring on other topic areas. Block log [93].) TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Ohconfucius has been uncivil and made personal attacks

2) Ohconfucius has displayed incivility and disrespect towards other members of the community [94][95][96][97][98] ; has made personal remarks and attacks, including during arbitration proceedings and has sought to marginalize and discredit other users on the basis of what he believes to be their religious affiliations or beliefs.[99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109]

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Ohconfucius has demonstrated a battleground mentality

3) Ohconfucius has demonstrated a battleground mentality in the Falun Gong namespace, which has continued into arbitration proceedings. [110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117]

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And per above. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Noetica's comment. Declaration: My sympathies are with movements like Falun Gong, in as much as they stand against the suppression of religious freedom in China. I understand something of the regime's persistent crimes against humanity and daily hypocritical disregard for the welfare of its citizens. So if I am partisan, I speak from the side of those who would accuse Ohconfucius. I will comment in this section only, without needless repetition anywhere else.

As a growing force in the economy of ideas, Wikipedia inevitably expands as a forum for contentious issues. It is impossible to legislate that away, and no ArbCom case can keep the Project entirely above the fray. There are proper mechanisms in place to limit this; but it would be troubling indeed if, through them, the Project were deprived of contributions from exceptionally valuable editors. In my experience, Ohconfucius shows passionate dedication to improving Wikipedia, and is a gifted analyst of style issues and matters of presentation. In the present circumstances I see him working with integrity for balance – on a difficult matter of content, where he is well placed to detect intrigues and ideological pushes that have no place on Wikipedia. This suggests an intense and enthusiastic approach, but it does not rise to a "battleground mentality".

I urge the Committee to make only a measured and tolerant response. The unpleasant work that Ohconfucius and others have done here is beyond the capacity of most editors, and is a service to our community. If it makes waves, so do many activities that are far less worthwhile.

Noetica^Tea? 23:49, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am very grateful to tha above editor for his own reasonable and nonjudgmental comments, particularly as they are, as per his own words, coming from someone sympathetic to Falun Gong. And, yeah, even I, who have extremely serious reservations about Master Li and some foreign governments in regard to Falun Gong, am also sympathetic to its practitioners and their rights. I would simply point out to him that, based on recent events displayed recently, perhaps particularly including these proceedings, and as is indicated elsewhere on these pages, Ohconfucius has chosen to no longer edit any articles related to Falun Gong. John Carter (talk) 23:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colipon has engaged in improper behavior

4) Colipon has engaged in unseemly behavior – including personal attacks, [118] incivility, assumptions of bad faith [119][120] [121][122][123] and has sought to marginalize and discredit other users on the basis of what he believes to be their religious affiliations or beliefs – even after being counseled against this by other editors. This behavior has continued into this arbitration case.[124][125][126][127]

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Part of my cause for original bringing AE. Colipon has only dug in during these Arbitration proceedings. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Colipon has demonstrated a battleground mentality

5) Colipon has demonstrated a pronounced battleground mentality in the Falun Gong namespace, [128][129][130][131][132][133] which has continued in arbitration proceedings [134][135], and he has made repeated misrepresentations of and exceptional and unsupported claims about perceived opponents during arbitration proceeding for the purpose of having them banned.

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Per above, evidence, AE he filed, and numerous workshop remarks. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Shrigley has engaged in battleground behavior

6) Shrigley has adopted a battleground mentality, has engaged in likely violations of NPA by seeking to discredit other editors on the basis of what he believes to be their religious affiliations or beliefs, [136][137][138][139] and he has misrepresented perceived opponents during arbitration proceedings

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Per evidence. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposals by User:Example 5

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Analysis of My very best wishes' evidence

Confucius Institutes edits were not an "edit war"

User:My very best wishes, in bullet point four, portrays a series of edits as an "edit-war". In fact, they were part of deliberative discussion and consensus-building, which My very best wishes obscures by omitting links to other users' reverts and talk page discussion. Here were his diffs:

PCPP (6 January 2012),
Shrigley (7 January 2012),
OhConfucius (11 January 2012),
Shtigley (10 February 2012),
OhConfucious (13 February 2012).

January edits

PCPP made a series of changes on 5-6 January, ending with diff 1, which were criticized by Homunculus and reverted by TheSoundAndTheFury largely because both users distrusted PCPP. After a multiparty talk page discussion here, in which we discussed all points of content, I was able to build trust between both sides and reinstate most of PCPP's edits on 7 January, diff 2. (TheSoundAndTheFury acknowledges that we reached consensus through discussion, rather than edit-warred). Ohconfucius's edit on 11 January, diff 3, did shorten some text but did not directly relate to the content in dispute.

February edits

One month later, from 8-10 February, User:Keahapana made a flurry of 17 edits without discussion, which both reverted PCPP's changes (against the consensus of H, me, TSTF, and PCPP) and reverted Ohconfucius's subsequent changes. (Keahapana acknowledges that his edits were "a response to the numerous changes made in January"). I revert him and ask him to discuss before making major changes, as has been expected of PCPP (diff 4). Keahapana reverts me, saying his changes were "fully explained", although Homunculus notes that there was no recent discussion in which Keahapana could have justified his changes. Ohconfucius reverts Keahapana back to consensus version (diff 5). And then, through discussion Ohconfucius, Homunculus, I, and Keahapana were able to come to a consensus on the changes to the page. Therefore My very best wishes' attempt to portray the editing there as "war" rings totally false.

A more holistic analysis of the evidence

The exact users who MVBW tries to frame as "edit-warriors" (me, Ohconfucius) were those users who edited and reverted in accordance with consensus-building norms, while the users who we reverted (TheSoundAndTheFury, Keahapana) wholly or partially violated those norms. The latest dispute erupted after I stopped editing that page, but PCPP basically alleges, credibly considering Keahapana's past behavior, that Keahapana disregarded our consensus and pushed through his personally desired changes. We have this problem with TheSoundAndTheFury and Homunculus flagrantly disregarding consensus that they themselves help formulate (Homunculus acknowledges one such self-made breach at Bo Xilai).

To stretch a topic ban beyond credulity

My very best wishes' portrayal of the Confucius Institutes as "engaged in world-wide suppression of discussions about human rights violations in China" in bullet point five is a true mischaracterization. It's a language learning center and has no political curriculum, yet opponents fault the teachers for not pushing an anti-Chinese government line. The teachers are recruited from China and Falun Gong is banned in China (so surprise, no employees are openly Falun Gong); if a nationwide Chinese law makes the Institutes a "Falun Gong article", then a topic ban on Falun Gong is effectively a topic ban on all China-related articles. Shrigley (talk) 03:26, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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@Here is diff by Shrigley. It tells : "engaged in world-wide suppression of discussions about human rights violations in China". Here is my text (the diff). It tells: "... is an organization funded by Chinese government and allegedly engaged in world-wide suppression of discussions ... The allegations are documented in multiple RS, and words “Falun Gong” appear in this article several times." Hence Shrigley starts his quotation of me directly after word "allegedly". Such selective quotation to "prove" something is totally inappropriate. I do not know anything about Shrigley, but I can only imagine what kind of "evidence" he provided to Arbcom. Please note that whole his Evidence section consists of selective quotations out of context. I probably would not even bother to read it. As about his another point, there is plenty of edits here which can be qualified as edit warring. But edit warring was not my point. My point was topic bans violations by PCPP, and this is not my conclusion. That was conclusion by several uninvolved AE administrators, as follows from the diffs in my Evidence section. My very best wishes (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Analysis of TheSoundAndTheFury's evidence against Shrigley

Confucius Institutes dispute resolution

TSTF cites as evidence [140] this diff on the dispute resolution noticeboard, in which I apparently refer to "Falun Gong-focused editors". It has been established in the Ohconfucius's and Colipon's evidence, particularly by link to Ohconfucius's quantitative analysis, that H and TSTF are single-purpose accounts dedicated to editing Falun Gong subjects. Colipon noted in his evidence how H and TSTF have a pattern of going to non-Falun Gong related articles, including biographies of high-ranking Chinese officials, and adding copious amounts of Falun Gong-related material.[141][142][143]

In this diff, I was participating in dispute resolution, where it is more common and even expected to comment on users' behavior, including patterns of editing, rather than simply content. Two months before the PCPP case came to the dispute resolution noticeboard, somebody changed the header to refocus the DRN towards content and not conduct disputes. I didn't notice this change and was perhaps operating under false assumptions, since I had used DRN to successfully mediate conduct disputes in the past.

The remarks to which TSTF took offense were demarcated under a section I wrote to establish the context of the article to a mediator. This included a reference to "Falun Gong followers" and a link to ARBFLG, where the pro-Falun Gong parties disclosed their membership. [144][145][146] Perhaps it was unwise to suggest a continuity between these now-banned editors and H and TSTF, but it should be understood within the context of a current AE case and talk page sniping in which TSTF made personal remarks about PCPP[147] and accused him of "pro-Chinese government editing".[148]

Ultimately, this edit was not an indication of battleground mentality, because they were focused on a narrow audience within a dispute resolution context. Such a mentality would also preclude civil cooperation towards building that article, but TSTF, Homunculus, Ohconfucius and I were able to repeatedly ratify compromises on the Confucius Institutes content.[149][150]

Bo Xilai mountain of a molehill

TSTF links to [151] this diff on Talk:Bo Xilai, in which I supposedly "[suggest] that [certain] editors... are “followers of small religiopolitical movements.”" The actual text shows that my message was a rejoinder to a personal attack by Homunculus against me: "I'm seriously tired of editors (always the same ones) deleting credible reports of human rights abuses.... Shrigley has... [made] an edit that is patently misleading."

Although TSTF wrote a threatening message on my talk page,[152] I replied[153] to clarify that I was not referring to Homunculus as TSTF had assumed. While Homunculus attacked me by name, I mentioned no name in my diff, and actually linked to a section([154] specifically) of the Bo Xilai talk page where a self-identified FLG member[155] and recognizably disruptive editor[156] advocated for the same "look how bad he treated Falun Gong" material in this man's biography as H and TSTF do now. Although H indicated in his evidence that he resents being connected to the ghosts of bad FLG editors, he makes exactly the same arguments and behaves in the same way.

TSTF describes what I shortened as an "impeccably sourced paragraph", which contrasts to what I supposedly called such material ("poorly sourced"). The sources cited included a little-known human rights litigation group, brief newswire accounts (with no followup) of completed lawsuits, and a Wikileaks cable. The first two weak sources were used to support the fact that Falun Gong filed lawsuits against Bo in the incorrect jurisdiction (anyone can file lawsuits and make such headlines, just like anyone can edit Wikipedia). The third source was used to argue for the lawsuits as a significant part of Bo's biography. Aside from being a "primary source" and "possibly illegal" (H's own ironic words on Wikileaks, before he argued the opposite when it could advance the FLG viewpoint), Wikileaks cables are at their core based on the hearsay of diplomats.

Although TSTF acknowledged my explanation for why this diff was not a speculation on the affiliations of H, and said that he "[doesn't] want to turn a molehill into a mountain", he dregs up this discredited diff again at Arbcom as a core part of his evidence against me. Although we've had many such pleasant exchanges, including on consensus-building at Confucius Institutes, these vignettes of cooperation don't mediate overall the level of vitriol that comes out during dispute resolution. I'm therefore not inspired with confidence by H and TSTF's continued paeans to "discussion, principled negotiation, and consensus building" throughout these proceedings. Shrigley (talk) 03:26, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Bad faith assumptions

This is an unusually nasty personal attack. Author of the comment (Shrigley) calls another editor by name, but he means all editors who do not share his POV on the subject. He claims (without any evidence) that named editor and all others are paid governmental agents to spread propaganda on-wiki, or at least this is my understanding of the diff. I do not know if there are other similar claims on the Evidence page, but it does not seem unreasonable if Arbcom would ban all contributors who made such claims. And I do not mean just topic ban, but site ban. My very best wishes (talk) 16:03, 18 June 2012 (UTC) Here is his response to request by Homunculus to AGF:[reply]

Well, Homunculus, conversations are bound to be stable and civil when everyone out of lockstep with the "NGO consensus on Falun Gong" is driven away or banned at AE. Colipon, your idea won't work because the stakes are too high for the Falun Gong activists. Here's a horrifying excerpt from the testimony of Ethan Guttman (of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies), the contents of which were contested yesterday just a section above: "For many Democrats, it took one Chinese-planted Wikipedia reference alleging Falun Gong was anti-gay to ward off sympathy." Evidently, for Falun Gong and its NGO allies of convenience, their lifeblood of U.S. government subsidies is dependent on their ability to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia. If only it were an ideological war. (User:Shrigley)

If you think that was an appropriate comment, it means we have a significant difference in opinions. He tells about alleged '"U.S. government subsidies" "to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia." He also adds: "If only it were an ideological war." This is quite a battleground statement.My very best wishes (talk) 19:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

I'm not sure how you can interpret a comment clearly directed at one person to be directed at people in general. The first sentence of Shrigley's comment does appear to be a veiled threat to get Homunculus banned, but I don't see that it's directed at anyone else, nor can I find a personal attack or any of the allegations you're claiming are there. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:40, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid confusing matters, could you post replies to comments in the "Comment by parties" section below rather than refactoring your original post? Thanks. And yes, I read the comment in the diff you posted, there's little need to repost it here. I'm not saying it was appropriate, you'll note I considered the first sentence to be a veiled threat. What I am saying is that I feel that your interpretation of the comment is not supported by what the comment actually says. How I interpret "Here's a horrifying excerpt..." onward is an explanation of why he feels Coliphon's idea won't work; to paraphrase, bad PR for Falun Gong == no money. I do not see this as an accusation that specific editors are receiving that money, and am somewhat confused how you'd come to that conclusion. I think the "idealogical war" comment is simply a continuation of those observations. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 19:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by parties:

I'm not entirely sure what was meant by that statement. My reading of it was that the first part of the statement was directed at me, but the latter part of the comment was directed at what Shrigley called "Falun Gong activists." I have only very recently been assigned that label, so I assume that he was referring to other editors involved in the thread, and/or that this was a general statement about Falun Gong editors. The suggestion was that "Falun Gong and its NGOs allies of convenience" are engaged in a campaign to "suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia" in order to procure or maintain U.S. government subsidies. I think this could reasonably be interpreted as an insinuation that that certain editors in the Falun Gong namespace are editing Wikipedia for the purpose of procuring U.S. government subsidies. I do not know what U.S. government subsidies are being referred to, but this does seem like a very unproductive and rather serious accusation of bad faith, whoever the target was. Homunculus (duihua) 19:25, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To Hersfold: my first sentence was not a threat to get Homunculus banned. My comment about the "NGO consensus on Falun Gong" was an allusion to an AE case against PCPP, wherein H used that phrase to argue against PCPP's alleged interpretation of NPOV. I was replying to a post where H said that "the page was stable and the discussions civil for a good long while before PCPP returned". Therefore my first sentence was a complaint that H's lauded "stability" of the Falun Gong page relied on the banning of a user who is seen as representing one side of the dispute, rather than genuine multiparty consensus.

As for the allegation that I was accusing specific Wikipedians of paid advocacy, that is an impossible reading of my comment. The grammatical subject of the sentence is "Falun Gong"; both H and TSTF deny that they belong to Falun Gong, and I have never accused them of belonging to that organization. I didn't need to make any great "assumption" to arrive at a simple corollary from the reliably-sourced statement about the real-world implications of Falun Gong's image on Wikipedia. I wasn't even soapboxing, because H and I were discussing a proposal from Colipon for third-party mediation of the article, and I was explaining why I thought such a proposal might not work.

TSTF, I don't think it's useful for you to conflate my statements with those of Ohconfucius and Colipon, by using phrases like "claims by Shrigley et al". This seems to be indicative of a battleground "us vs. them" mentality. I did note that Ohc and Colipon's evidence charged him with being an SPA, but can you point out a diff where I myself unambiguously mark H as a "Falun Gong activist or meatpuppet"? You seem to have this problem of attributing statements to me which I attribute to others, such as in your evidence where you say I call Falun Gong a cult, when I actually made reference to other people's judgments of that group. Shrigley (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the precise difference is between calling someone a Falun Gong SPA, or a Falun Gong meatpuppet, or a Falun Gong activist? The three terms have the same effect in discussions. It is the attributing of undesirable motives, and political or religious affiliations, to another editor in order to marginalize them and discredit their contributions. When I raise issue with this, I don't split hairs on the precise term being used because the meaning and effect is the same. When you refer to Falun Gong as "an organization widely regarded as a cult," aren't you simply stating your own views? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, re-reading what Shrigley wrote, I'm not even sure what he meant. I think he was disagreeing with me about my calling for third-party oversight on the articles. Regardless, I think this is now becoming something of a red herring. There are bigger issues at play that should be discussed. Colipon+(Talk) 20:50, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, Shrigley, when you wrote "for Falun Gong and its NGO allies of convenience, their lifeblood of U.S. government subsidies is dependent on their ability to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia," were you or weren't you alluding to other editors? You seem to be saying above that this was just a general comment on Falun Gong, and not a personal attack or assumption of bad faith against other users. If it's a general comment about Falun Gong, then I think MVBW may be right—it's still an example of soapboxing and/or using the talk page as a forum. Comments of this nature have no utility in content discussions.

As an aside: the veracity of these claims themselves may be worth clarifying, as it's come up twice now. I am aware of no reliable source that asserts Falun Gong receives U.S. government (or any other government) subsidies. The closest thing I know of is some technology companies run by Falun Gong adherents who get operating contracts from Voice of America. Aside from that, the Chinese government claims Falun Gong is funded by the U.S. government, Falun Gong says that it's not, and reliable sources have neither proven or disproven the claims.Homunculus (duihua) 22:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

This is an unusually poorly sourced comment. One, Shrigley does not directly comment on any other editors, despite that being the clear indication of the comment above. The evidence simply does not support the first claim. Also, the fact that MVBW makes a further conclusion (without any evidence) that the comment is directed at "all editors who do not share his POV" is one which I cannot believe can be necessarily reasonably supported by the evidence. This seems to me to be a possibly/probably concious example of misrepresentation of the comments of others, which seems to me to be itself perhaps more problematic than the edit he is introducing as evidence. John Carter (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the part of the text that I think My very best wishes finds objectionable: "Colipon, your idea won't work because the stakes are too high for the Falun Gong activists. Here's a horrifying excerpt from the testimony of Ethan Guttman (of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies), the contents of which were contested yesterday just a section above: "For many Democrats, it took one Chinese-planted Wikipedia reference alleging Falun Gong was anti-gay to ward off sympathy." Evidently, for Falun Gong and its NGO allies of convenience, their lifeblood of U.S. government subsidies is dependent on their ability to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings on Wikipedia. If only it were an ideological war." This seems to be saying that Shrigley believes that "Falun Gong and its NGO allies of convenience" are editing Wikipedia articles "in order to suppress the unsavory aspects of Falun Gong's teachings" so as to retain "U.S. government subsidies." This is in the context of other claims by Shrigley et al that Homunculus is a single purpose account and a Falun Gong activist or meatpuppet, so I assume that that is who Shrigley is referring to (or, who else? Shrigley may wish to clarify.) The Sound and the Fury (talk) 19:13, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, this is WP:SOAP by Shrigley. But I think this is also a personal attack, one that is constantly repeated by this group of users on numerous pages, and it seem to affect other people [157]. My very best wishes (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Analysis of claims of being an SPA

I have been accused of editing Falun Gong articles only from the perspective of Falun Gong, and against the Chinese government. I looked through my contributions recently; the evidence does not support this assertion. Below are a sampling of edits that do not fit this narrative. The purpose of presenting these diffs is to debunk the idea that I am somehow a "Falun Gong activist," SPA, meatpuppet, or <insert negatively-charged label here>. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

[158] - seems neutral
[159], [160], [161], [162], [163], [164] - dissections of content on the page. This is the kind of work I do.
[165] - delete praise for Falun Gong.
[166] - delete Li Hongzhi defense of FLG
[167] - question source, chastise FLG guy
[168] - add a coercive treatment section.
[169] - Ask how Falun Gong uses information about the persecution publicly in the West
[170] - add the word "reportedly"
[171] - delete praise
[172] - neutrality
[173] - question criticism of Falun Gong.
[174] - defend reduction of persecution information
[175] - chastise FLG editor
[176] - again
[177] - again
[178] - try to mediate between parties
[179] - remove assertion of fact favored by FLG
[180] - soften FLG statements

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

(This section is a response to TSTF's statement above)

TSTF's edits show a consistent pattern of pro-Falun Gong advocacy. Whether we want to call this "SPA" or not is entirely a matter of semantics and in any case irrelevant. What matters is the damage it has done to the encyclopedia.
I fully acknowledge very collegial exchanges between TSTF and myself in the 'early life' of his account, when the previous Falun Gong cabal was still around. At the time, it was favourable for him to set himself apart from the FLG practitioners on the pages, who were all stained with topic bans of one form or another. Under those circumstances, any inkling of a pro-FLG POV would have gotten TSTF sanctioned without fail, as would have exclusively Falun Gong-focused editing. So he carefully treaded the minefield.

TSTF fully 'spread his wings' once the Falun Gong cabal were handed indefinite bans as a result of the PCPP arbitration case in 2011; with the previous cohort of FLG SPAs gone, no one was left to 'defend the Fa' and the articles risked losing the 'balance' that the cabal had worked so hard to engender over the years, so TSTF showed his true colours by stepping into the fray.

Even if we ignore the extenuating circumstances, TSTF's defense falls apart when we examine his diffs more closely. Along with his more recent content contributions in 2012, everything unmistakably paints the picture of a Falun Gong activist.

TSTF makes substantive edits and non-substantive edits to Falun Gong articles. Most of the diffs he presents as 'neutral' were very insignificant, compared to his apparent POV-pushing diffs, which were lengthy, argumentative, and weaselly.

Non-substantive edits:

For example, this non-substantive edit removed some Falun Gong fluff, which is easy to identify even to a totally uninvolved user. Plus, removing it cannot be considered unfavourable to FLG, as the flowery praise makes it very obvious that the page is written by FLG practitioners.
The explanation of removing a quote from Li is also relatively insignificant, and this also cannot be construed as unfavourable to FLG, since Li's quotation has been used by some scholars critical of Falun Gong while dissecting the politicized nature of the movement.
This is a neutralizing-style edit. It's somewhat of a low-hanging fruit though. Again, fairly unsubstantive.
Ditto, this is a good edit at the time, and it would help his claims of 'neutrality' were he consistent, because inexplicably, TSTF forcefully argues for the He-Luo familial relationship's inclusion here, in tandem with Homunculus. So what exactly did he want?

When we look at substantive edits, a clearer picture emerges:

Like Falun Gong's "official narrative", TSTF launches into an extremely lengthy wikilawyering session to argue for removal of content critical of Falun Gong: the edit seeks to obfuscate the idea that Falun Gong was 'controversial' prior to the Chinese government ban and isolate all criticism of the practice as a conspiracy by the CCP.
Here TSTF says he encounters "sourcing irregularities", but if one reads the general discussion surrounding those edits, it is very clear that all of these 'irregular sources' discuss content critical of Falun Gong.
Another lengthy lawyering session that argues for excising Ostergaard's analysis, which is only mildly skeptical of Falun Gong (you can tell the extreme sensitivities to criticism.)
Again lawyers to argue, in effect, that Oostergaard is not a great source (see "some sources are more equal than others"), as compared to sources which were somewhat more sympathetic to Falun Gong.
This comment challenges edits that apparently reduced the emphasis on emotive imagery, a central part of FLG advocacy.
This edit argues for the term "propaganda" to be used for information that comes out of Chinese government sources.
Very obviously trying to downplay Falun Gong's more 'controversial' teachings, such as homophobia, race-based heavens, and apocalypse. The same arguments from Falun Gong's official source is seen here. The similarities are striking.
Looking back, even in the diffs he had selectively chosen for the sake of combating his SPA accusations, his POV-pushing comes off as extremely obvious, if perhaps somewhat civil in tone.

Of course, the vast majority of his substantive edits to Falun Gong were omitted in his defense above. These edits uniformly fit the editing patterns of a Falun Gong activist. Not only does he remove information that can be considered critical of Falun Gong, he is sensitive to even minor alterations to Falun Gong's "preferred narrative". Most alarmingly, his argumentation is effectively identical to those presented by Falun Gong's official website. Where applicable below, I provide the link to Falun Gong's official position to show similarities with TSTF's argumentation.

This edit says 'activist' left and right: it dresses up esoteric Falun Gong doctrine much in the same way as Falun Gong promotional pamphlets, expounding on its 'moral code'. Note that the majority of these edits directly cite Falun Gong's official website.
[181] [182] Tag-revert-warring with AgadaUrbanit without even hearing out the user's concerns. (FLG SPAs in the past were extremely sensitive to neutrality tags being placed on articles)
Edit-warring with what seemed like a student doing a Wikipedia-based project for school on Chinese propaganda. Here again. Notice how the material written by the new user is actually very critical of the Chinese government, but it was still basically removed wholesale because it did not fit Falun Gong's "preferred narrative".
Despite its 'reliable source', This edit basically acts to inflate Falun Gong's membership figures to an implausible 70 million, a trait typical of NRMs
Removes reliably sourced apocalyptic teachings of Falun Gong's founder (wikilawyering seen in above diffs), to fit Falun Gong's "preferred narrative". (Elsewhere TSTF has lobbied in favour of Penny as a source, but apparently when the information cited is unfavourable to Falun Gong, suddenly Penny is no longer acceptable)
Wholesale revert of Falun Gong's politicized nature (something that is an open secret but FLG activists emphatically deny).

From the analysis above, the fact that TheSound is a Falun Gong activist should be very clear. Given the weight of this evidence, speculation on his real-life identity is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he is a Falun Gong practitioner, a paid lobbyist, an opinionated human rights researcher, a mutinous CCP member looking to defect the regime, or even just an ordinary investment banker with no affiliation at all. None of this is irrelevant if his presence on Wikipedia is detrimental to our project and does not serve our five pillars. I would be extremely surprised if even the most innocent bystander do not see the obvious POV-pushing nature of his edits. Since his primary purpose on Wikipedia is to advocate on behalf of Falun Gong, a topic ban would effectively amount to a site ban.

Colipon+(Talk) 19:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is the precise definition of a conspiracy theory. I remove information on the persecution, and that is because it does not precisely fit Falun Gong's narrative of persecution? A piece of evidence is explained through the lens by which you impute my beliefs. Every new piece of evidence is simply made to fit within that predefined framework. The classification here of activism and SPA behavior, using your own criteria, could very easily be used against yourself. The fixation on the identity and motives of other editors - rather than the forthright discussion of specific content proposals with reference to the most reliable literature - is one of the problems that the initial case was about. And all my edits are explainable in those terms, as I could look at each of my edits and justify them according to the reliable sources, all without insulting anyone or impugning their motives. Of course, once you have decided who I am and divined my motives, all becomes an exercise in justifying that conspiracy. This is in fact one of the main reasons I filed the original AE. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 21:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that it's permitted to introduce new evidence on this page. The clerks may choose to delete some of the above if appropriate. If not, some guidance on acceptable conduct here would be appreciated. I'm not going to provide an exhaustive analysis of these diffs, but I was involved in a lot of the events that transpired, and can only say that I think a lot of the summaries Colipon provided appear to be distortions, and he has continued to unreasonably speculate on the editor's motivations and personal beliefs as a way of explaining those edits—even edits that clearly don't fit the narrative. I really don't think this is healthy. Homunculus (duihua) 21:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I make it very clear that it is the persistent pattern of POV-pushing edits that is the most troubling, not speculation of his real-life identity, which I emphasized is irrelevant. Colipon+(Talk) 23:58, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I dearly hope that whoever is evaluating all this will take a look at some of these diffs. This one, for example [183] is a good representation. I carefully looked through the sources on the page, checked the references, and collegially discussed the problems with them. In hindsight it is clear that the effect of it was to undo many of the distortions of sources and original research that had been put on the page, but that is only a byproduct of the work I did. My methodology in examining sources carefully and looking for accurate depictions according to the most reliable sources is sound and defensible. Anyone reading that diff, which you have provided here as evidence of how I am a Falun Gong SPA POV-pusher, should see things very clearly. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 00:52, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious as to your explanation of this edit, which primarily relies on Falun Gong official sources, and seems like it came right out of a Falun Gong promotional pamphlet. Surely you won't argue that Faluninfo.net is the "best reliable source" for an article dealing with Falun Gong itself. Colipon+(Talk) 01:22, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure we should engage in content discussions here, but as I recall that edit was simply removing some unnecessary citation tags (i.e. sources were already supplied) and adding back to the page longstanding information which had been removed without proper discussion. Used judiciously, Falun Gong's texts and advocacy websites are reliable sources for representing official the views of Falun Gong, per WP:SPS. I didn't actually write any of that material, just restored it in an attempt to improve the page. Hope that helps. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 01:32, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Incidentally I went back and clicked on nearly all of the diffs Colipon provided of my "substantial" contributions on the Falun Gong namespace, meant to show that I am an activist. Reviewing arbitrators: please consider looking at them. This is some of the best evidence Colipon has so far advanced that supports the idea that I am an activist SPA-type. Those diffs (referring mainly to those in the second set of asterisks, because they show closest engagement with the editing and literature) should thus be examined carefully, because this is a key part of Colipon's narrative. I just read them and I think that no one, after reading through my examination of sourcing and good faith discussion and questions, could reach that conclusion. I had started to doubt my own neutrality after all the name calling, but after looking at those diffs I am reassured that I have been fair. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 16:46, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

Declare Independence

TheSoundAndTheFury charges Ohconfucius, Colipon, and me with not once expressing divergent opinions on the FLG namespace, and therefore "failing to exercise independent judgment". However, this idea is easily falsifiable by these significant cases where we disagree:

[184] This much ballyhooed diff shows me arguing against Colipon's proposals for a moderated edit regime on Falun Gong.
[185][186] Colipon and Ohconfucius vote the opposite way on the AfD of the son of a man with whom Falun Gong has a grudge.
[187] I criticize Colipon, among other users, for their interpretation of the balance of the reviews on a Falun Gong-promotional dance troupe.

It should also be noted that my involvement in Falun Gong topics is relatively recent and narrow, at least compared to Ohc and Colipon, and that I focused on those general Chinese politics topics where H and TSTF have tried to insert undue Falun Gong material. Therefore, we have not had much chance for interaction.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

It takes two WP:GAMErs to tango

The flip-side of TSTF's evidence against Ohconfucius for edit-warring is that in all of these cases, either Homunculus alone reverts Ohconfucius, or cooperately reverts with TSTF or Zujine in order to subvert WP:3RR. Three reverts are not an entitlement; both H and TSTF have edit-warred as much as Ohc.

Bo Xilai reverts

[188] Ohc <-> [189] H
[190] Ohc <-> [191] TSTF
[192] Ohc <-> [193] H
[194] Ohc <-> [195] H

Total reverts: Ohc: 4, H: 3, TSTF: 1.

Cult suicide reverts

[196] Ohc <-> [197] HappyInGeneral (banned)
[198] Ohc <-> [199] H
[200] Ohc <-> [201] H
[202] Ohc <-> [203] H
[204] Jsjsjs111 <-> [205]
Final version <-> [206] H

Total reverts: H: 4, Ohc: 4, HiG: 1, Js: 1

This isn't the forum to present new evidence. Also, I made four edits, not four reverts. I made two reverts in 24 hours, accompanied by a talk page discussion. OhC made 4 reverts in 24 hours. I made another revert days later when an editor restored the contested material without discussion, and exhorted them to discuss, rather than edit war. Homunculus (duihua) 21:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

T-square self-immolation reverts

[207] Ohc <-> [208] Zujine (Z)
[209] Ohc <-> [210] Z
[211] Shrigley <-> [212] Z
[213] Ohc <-> [214] Z
[215] Festermunk <-> [216] Z
[217] Ohc <-> [218] Z
[219] Ohc <-> [220] H

Total reverts: Zujine: 6, Ohc: 5, H: 1, Shrigley: 1, Festermunk: 1

I think I'm going to need to write something up documenting the manner in which evidence is being misrepresented here. I've looked through the history of this page myself. Many of Z's changes were not reverts: in many case he/she was adding and adjusting content based on talk page discussions. Ohc made many reverts and effective reverts that are not listed here. And what's more, this does not account for the context. Z was actively discussing changes on the talk page, trying to engage Ohc, and raising clear and specific content issues. I think Zujine probably discussed every single change he made. Ohc was ignoring these comments and insulting the other editor while making major, unilateral reverts to the page with no discussion. That's the difference, and this applies to all the counts provided here: not only can they not really be trusted (eg. you're calling edits reverts when they were not), but they ignore the context. For instance, any time I revert someone, I provide an explanation on the talk page or their user page. In most cases, I don't even revert: I'll preemptively start a talk page discussion in an attempt to demonstrate to them why I believe their edits were not constructive, and then allow them to make modifications based on the outcome of that discussion. When Ohconfucius edit wars, he often does so with no discussion, and ignores the pleas of other editors to talk about the content issues (for instance, he characterized Zujine's talk page threads at this page as "moans" to be ignored). I'm not saying that edit warring under any circumstance is justified, but the context and surrounding behavior matters. Homunculus (duihua) 23:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shen Yun reverts

They weren't included in TSTF's evidence against Ohc, but rather in Colipon's evidence against H/TSTF, but they're instructive as to H and TSTF's "cooperative reversion" modus operandi.

[221] H <-> [222] Gw2005
[223] TSTF <-> [224] IP
[225] TSTF <-> [226] Antilived
[227] TSTF <-> [228] IP
[229] H <-> [230] Ohc
[231] H <-> [232] Ohc
[233] TSTF <-> [234] Shrigley (S)
[235] H <-> [236] S

Total reverts: H: 4, TSTF: 4, IP: 2, Shrigley: 2, Ohc: 2, Antilived: 1

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Unfortunately, I don't feel that this is really fair. Look at the dates. Also, my edits really were in good faith. In one diff I remove material that had no author name and was not a usable source; in another case I revert material that I thought had been gratuitously deleted. The dates are January 4, Jan. 25, Jan. 26, and April 23. This is not edit warring and I did not plan or coordinate my edits with anyone else. Unfortunately, I feel that this accusation is not fair. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 22:58, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

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General discussion

Keep the solution in mind

I think it's worth examining the question of what "damages the encyclopedia." There have been several insinuations that editors are damaging the project on the basis of their perceived point of view. This is problematic. An editor may hold any point of view, and the possession of a point of view is not reasonable grounds for seeking to banish a person from contributing. The crucial question is whether editors demonstrate an ability and a willingness to work with others in good faith, regardless of divergent point of views; whether they treat other editors with courtesy and respect; whether they strive to edit from a neutral point of view, and seek to represent notable viewpoints in proportion to their prominence; whether they constructively build the encyclopedia by writing good content, and so on. Damage to the project occurs when editors consistently fail to adhere to content and behavioral policies that govern the encyclopedia.

In my real life as on this project, I have a philosophy to disputes that I think is worth stating here: in a conflict, always stay focused on the resolution, and don't do or say anything that is not conducive to achieving that resolution. In other words, don't do anything that will only serve to deepen a conflict. I'm admittedly not perfect in applying this philosophy, but I try, and this is why I have (in Colipon's words) been so unwaveringly civil in this namespace: because that's what is necessary to move it past the state of an ideological battleground with deeply entrenched personal resentments. In this case, the desired outcome is this: editors involved in the Falun Gong pages should be able to regard other editors with good faith, even when disagreeing; should all strive to edit from a neutral point of view, and be willing to hear out divergent opinions; discuss content in an earnest and substantive manner, rather than focusing on contributors; and so on. I hope all the parties here can consider this when writing on this page. I'll try to do better myself. Homunculus (duihua) 21:25, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Just so Homunculus does not continue abusing my quotation about "unwaveringly civil": it was a value-neutral remark that was meant to demonstrate how the mode of Falun Gong advocacy has changed and adapted to new circumstances. If one goes back into the editing history of previous Falun Gong SPAs, who often abused the WP:AGF in the same way H is doing now, one would see that HappyInGeneral and Asdfg12345 were both very civil in discussions. I am happy, though, that some determined AE reviewers stepped up to the plate and saw through their civil facade, and was brave enough to ban these users even though they themselves initiated much of the arbitration-related drama, and I forsee a similar outcome here. Colipon+(Talk) 00:16, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homunculus, I agree. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 00:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ John, I suppose this is just an area where we'll have to agree to disagree. In a perfect world, the evidence phase would be used to present clear evidence. Then the workshop phase would be used to help editors clarify issues and move beyond the dispute. We would be able to discuss things calmly, engage in some self-reflection, consider how we may have behaved inappropriately, seek to understand the perspectives of others, and agree to basic principles, determinations of fact, and remedies. My understanding of the workshop page is that it should not be a forum for the parties to take off the gloves and duke it out, maligning and misrepresenting perceived opponents in order to try to get them banned, and thereby permanently damaging their relationships. Maybe that is how the process normally goes—I'm not sure—but that's not me. That's not how I've conducted myself on article space, and it's not how I will conduct myself now. Homunculus (duihua) 01:53, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others:

I would question this myself as it specifically applies here. We are here because certain involved editors brought a matter to WP:AE because they found the conduct of other editors such that arbitration enforcement was required. Once there, the admins who monitor the AE page saw that the conduct of some parties involved was such that full Arbitration seemed called for, and the editors involved seem to have agreed. So, basically, we got here because some parties did not assume AGF or apparently show willingness to conduct themselves according to guidelines. It seems to me unreasonable for us to now try to metaphorically kiss and make up, and certainly unreasonable to do so before the Arbitrators determine what to do here. Requests for arbitration are basically like court rooms. We are supposed to present evidence to the judges, and in many cases that evidence will be damaging to some of the parties involved. That is the nature of the proceedings. Maybe, after the Workshop phase is ended, this might make sense. But for now it is unreasonable and ultimately likely counterproductive for anyone to "pull their punches" because they might offend someone. It is I believe well too late to worry about that. However, at the end of the workshop phase, and certainly after the decision, then it is certainly reasonable for those who remain to acknowledge that the Arbitrators have acted reasonably, which I am sure they will, and all sanctions required are given out. John Carter (talk) 01:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Homunculus: I acknowledge that your edits to this page support your statements of your opinions regarding this process. Unfortunately, as per the various pages relevant to the dispute resolution process, particularly WP:ARB, about arbitration, this process is the final step toward resolving conflicts. We would prefer that the process, in general, follow the steps you indicated above. However, when this matter was brought to AE by TSTF, and particularly when it was accepted by ArbCom, then it became, basically, a courtroom. In general, I think I and virtually everyone else involved would agree that gratuitous maligning and misrepresenting of others is not really sought here, just presentation of evidence to the arbitrators. However, like in any other court, that happens, unfortunately often. It should be noted however that the Arbitrators have been selected for this position based on the degree of trust they have earned regarding fairness to all. That includes when required noting when individuals have clearly violated civility and other conduct guidelines, which presenting of false or misrepresenting evidence qualifies as. John Carter (talk) 21:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Red alert

This diff by Homunculus is alarming as it is highly offensive. It really exemplifies the way User Homunculus has 'dealt with' dissenting opinions in the past and speaks to the obsessive authoritarian oversight on Falun Gong articles by activists. If this user remains on this website in any capacity after this ArbCom case, not only will I stop editing any article even tangentially related to Falun Gong, I will also be avoiding all contact with this user at all costs. Colipon+(Talk) 15:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohconfucius retirement

Ohconfucius just declared his retirement from Falun Gong articles. I strongly urge him to reconsider, and remind him that Homunculus' full-frontal assault will be considered by ArbCom as evidence in this case.
I feel a profound sense of loss. The more editors fall like him, the more this community suffers at the hands of partisan interests fixated on crafting our encyclopedia to achieve their real-world ends. The abuse that he has endured at the hands of the FLG cabal is reprehensible, and the community ought to do something to rescue good-faith editors that get worn out by these dedicated activists who will do anything to get their way. Colipon+(Talk) 15:54, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colipon: It is not immediately clear how the diff above is alarming or highly offensive, or speaks to obsessive authoritarian oversight of Falun Gong articles by Homunculus. Homunculus's tone was terse but she addressed factual misrepresentations in a straightforward manner. Usually such claims have slid in the past, but this time she addressed the matter directly.

There has been a great deal of name calling in this namespace and during this Arbitration case - all going one way. I have not called anyone any names, nor has Homunculus. In your note above you still call Homunculus an "activist." Personal attacks have been made, attempts to divine other people's motives and beliefs and divide them into categories; dossiers have been compiled to further this categorization; myself and Homunculus have been called meatpuppets and "Falun Gongsters," (with specious arguments that this is somehow not a pejorative term, which is completely beside the point). Further, there have been serious misrepresentations of other editors on this page for the express purpose of having them banned.

Regarding the claim about the reprehensible abuse by the “Falun Gong cabal": evidence of the abuses or misbehavior of the editors you identify as belonging to this “cabal” should have been presented on the evidence page.

With respect to the "full-frontal assault": Homunculus has not presented any evidence against any of these editors except as a defense of herself. She has not argued for their ban. She has not reciprocated the taunting and name calling that has been made against her. In my view she has demonstrated exceptional restraint. And when she sought to clarify Ohconfucius’s obvious and repeated misrepresentation of her own beliefs and the views of David Ownby, this is labeled a full frontal assault? I disagree. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The insulting parts of Homunculus's message can easily be found by parsing it for all sentences that start with "you":[237] "[Y]ou have misrepresent [sic] people... You then twisted my attempt to clarify... [you] ascribe to me a "Falun Gong worldview"... that probably only exists in your mind... This is insulting, and you've done it repeatedly.... [My civility] stands in marked contrast to your own comments... [Your] framing of the issue... demonstrates... a profound lack of sophistication... You have misrepresented my views, and you've (quite badly) misrepresented a scholar's views. A scholar whose article you apparently do not even have access to. Your comments here and elsewhere suggests to me that you do not have a very sound understanding of the corpus of literature.... I've also read nearly all of Ownby's... [writings] and it's not apparent that you have done same.... [Y]ou just draw these conclusions about a scholar's views... that you read out of context.... You do not seem familiar with the literature... you have drawn a rash, reductionist, and false conclusion about the views of a scholar on Falun Gong when it suited you.... I don't think you can be considered a very good judge of whether my edits in this area comply with NPOV." (my emphasis) In addition the obvious and direct "you-messages", Homunculus continues to misrepresent Ohc's views when he says, "Ownby has never approached endorsing the views of the Chinese government... as you've claimed", when Ohconfucius has previously firmly stated[238] that his pointing out of some of Ownby's Falun Gong-skeptical writings has nothing to do with the Chinese government. This continued "guilt by association" tactic of trying to associate Ohc with the Chinese government is especially insulting to him, considering Ohc's stated pro-human rights views and history of writing articles documenting abuses against Chinese dissidents. Shrigley (talk) 18:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Shrigley has accused me of misrepresenting Ohconfucius. In my view, Shrigley has misrepresented me by redacting my quotation inappropriately, and thereby changing its meaning. Also, I have never, ever sought to tie Ohconfucius to the Chinese government. Unless Shrigley can provide a diff (no long exegesis please; diffs can speak for themselves) to support this accusation, I suggest that the Arbs take note again here that Shrigley has seriously misrepresented me. Homunculus (duihua) 19:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't see how any amount of remorse or any other form of backtracking will get Homunculus out of sanctions, now that the genie has been let out of the proverbial bottle in one of the nastiest, most insulting, and most self-righteous rants I have ever witnessed on this website. Let ArbCom be the judge. Colipon+(Talk) 01:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also I find the use of so many "you" clauses interesting, since I had explicitly asked this user to address matters to ArbCom instead of using "you", evidently to no avail. Colipon+(Talk) 01:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Across this page, as well as in his AE submission, Colipon has employed a lot of loaded characterizations of my edits and statements ("egregious," "self-righteous," "polemical," "gratuitous" "appalling," nasty, etc.). I think it's preferable to try to let diffs, and the evidence, speak for itself. Homunculus (duihua) 03:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Final comment by Colipon

Note on Shen Yun

The dispute at Shen Yun is simple. I argue that the article's content obfuscates the show's politicized nature. Despite my references to reliable sources, users TSTF and H filibustered. Unwilling to intrude further into their territory for fear of getting shelled, I simply acquiesced, and gave up. All the diffs TSTF presents against me for 'Shen Yun' are contentions to that effect. My views about content on 'Shen Yun' were echoed by user John Carter at the original AE.

The situation at Shen Yun is worrisome. There is a vested interest for the show's real-world promoters to obfuscate its political nature. In the past, they were singled out by the Canadian ethics commissioner for offering free tickets to politicians, in the hopes of obtaining federal funding. When money and politics are involved, it is not difficult to read between the lines why Wikipedia would be a fertile staging ground for a real-world agenda. Colipon+(Talk) 16:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some diffs used as evidence against me

The following diffs may be problematic taken as standalone comments.

[239] [240] [241]

Such commentary, justified or not, should have been made in a dispute resolution venue such as this page, rather than on the article talk pages, which should be used to discuss content. Colipon+(Talk) 16:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohconfucius

Ohconfucius is a good case study of the Falun Gong story. If one takes a look at this user's extensive contributions, it is clear that he is a 'clean-up' expert with many barnstars to show for his efforts and a large network of users willing to vouch for his credibility (including User SilkTork), and has displayed open skepticism towards both FLG and the CCP. He understands the purpose of this encyclopedia. This makes his presence especially irksome for Falun Gong users, who, absent the options of calling him a CCP agent and accuse him of being narrowly-focused on FLG, have laboured for years to find the only way to get rid of him: intimidate him, and slap him with an AE case to discourage him from participation forever. Ironically this is exactly what happened. This state of affairs is truly very sad. As he has emerged unwittingly as 'public enemy #1' for Falun Gong on Wikipedia over time, I sometimes fear for his personal safety. Colipon+(Talk) 16:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My future involvement

Above all, the conduct of users H and TSTF is not aligned with the goals of this encyclopedia. I worked productively with both at first, but over time they have irreversibly depleted my goodwill.

The community must stand firm against users who act counter to our encyclopedic mission. I am unwilling to deal with the continued abuse. If user Homunculus continues editing in any capacity on this website, I will impose a 'restraining order' on myself to stay away from this user as much as possible. Unless I have 'back-up' from the community at large, I will not interfere with their advocacy drive, nor will I bother to fight their POV-pushing.

I am but one user, and I can only do so much. I have had enough, and my time is better spent being productive elsewhere.

Should either user continue their involvement on Falun Gong articles or related pages, I will self-impose an indefinite ban on editing those articles much like user ohconfucius had done.

I still have faith that we can continue building this encyclopedia for the service of our readers, and at the conclusion of this ArbCom case, I will resume producing high-quality content in subjects unrelated to Falun Gong. Colipon+(Talk) 16:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by parties

Colipon, I do not wish to harp on this, and you're entitled to leave a parting note, expressing your opinions, in peace. However, I would like to make a couple comments.

Without wanting to get into lengthy content discussions, I have a very different take on the dispute at Shen Yun Performing Arts (and with the Falun Gong namespace in general). My interest on this page has been to make it complete, well sourced, and fair—nothing more or less—and that includes having negative reviews of the performances presented in a proportional and fair way. I watch the page closely because I have found that it is the target of regular disruptive editing. Based on their contributions there, Ohconfucius, Shrigley, Colipon, do not seem to me to express the same interest in developing a well-rounded page; their edits almost exclusively serve to highlight and promote negative reviews of the show, to delete positive and well-sourced reviews, to amplify minor controversies and criticism (sometimes against consensus), to delete relevant and neutral information on the company, and to delete or misattribute information about the Chinese government's interference with the performances. When I or others have asked for help or feedback on neutral aspects of the page (ie. how to present tour information, doing Chinese-language research to build pages for some of the company's notable performers, etc), they express no interest. My experience is that this is typical across the Falun Gong namespace: whereas I have sought to build complete and well-rounded articles in this namespace, these editors have not.

Colipon writes "In the past, they were singled out by the Canadian ethics commissioner for offering free tickets to politicians, in the hopes of obtaining federal funding." For the record, the source did not say anything about Shen Yun's organizers hoping to obtain federal funding, and I've never seen the claim made elsewhere. Colipon may want to redact this comment.

Colipon has written that Ohconfucius is "especially irksome for Falun Gong users" because he's a great editor. It is not appropriate to refer to other people as "Falun Gong users". None of the editors currently active in this space identify as such. There have been a number of efforts to craft a narrative tying myself and TSTF to editors who are no longer active (even on the evidence page, for instance, diffs of edits performed by myself and TSTF are mixed liberally with edits by retired or topic-banned editors, as though to engage in guilt by association). That is not appropriate. Secondly, I appreciate Ohconfucius's constructive efforts. There are elements to his behavior that I find very worrisome, however, such as regular edit warring, refusal to engage in talk page discussions, persistent and rather serious personal attacks, etc. (to say nothing of his content contributions, which I can't say I've found very helpful in this namespace). Colipon also writes "absent the options of calling him a CCP agent and accuse him of being narrowly-focused on FLG, [Falun Gong users] have laboured for years to find the only way to get rid of him...." I think this is an inappropriate comment at many levels.

Colipon also wrote that Ohconfucius "has emerged unwittingly as 'public enemy #1' for Falun Gong on Wikipedia over time, I sometimes fear for his personal safety." — I have no idea what is meant by this comment, why Colipon feels that Ohconfucius is the enemy of Falun Gong, or how he thinks Ohconfucius' personal safety is at risk. But this is also seems very inappropriate.

It might be worth noting that Ohconfucius and Colipon have both previously committed themselves to voluntary topic bans, most recently during an AE case in October 2011. In my (admittedly unscientific) opinion, they became more active thereafter, precipitating greater instability across the Falun Gong namespace. Homunculus (duihua) 18:07, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Colipon has characterized me as an incorrigibly biased editor, against the Chinese government and for Falun Gong; he has called me an activist, and I’ve also been called an SPA and a meatpuppet, etc. by Ohconfucius. The complaint is that I am a “civil point of view-pusher”: an activist that has learned how to game the system by behaving civilly to people while pushing a political mission.

I fundamentally reject this. There is no single “truth” for the topics we write about, especially on contentious matters related to contemporary Chinese politics and religion and human rights. I make honest efforts to edit based on my reading of reliable sources. No doubt that if I were to sit down with Colipon or Ohconfucius, we would have different views on the topic of Falun Gong. But I am happy to agree to disagree. And I am happy to work in a productive manner with others with different views on the content. My editing history shows that. I have never attempted to impugn the intentions of other editors or ascribe to them political motives, and would not contemplate doing so. And I do not deserve the opposite. How can they be so sure their views on the matter are the correct ones? The way this is supposed to work is that we discuss things in a collegial manner. We sit down and take a close look at all the sources available, we figure out which are the best, which are reliable for different facts, and so on. And when we disagree, we compromise and make accommodations in good faith. We engage in rational argument and discussion. The page that emerges as a result of that will differ from a page written by one party. But Wikipedia’s model means there is no alternative to that process: “Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making.”

I began an AE case against Shrigley, Colipon, and Ohconfucius because I believed they had forsaken this fundamental tenet: through personal attacks, edit warring, accusations of bad faith, accusations of activism, inappropriate claims or suspicions of what my beliefs or political affiliations are, etc. In that case the process of consensus breaks down, and someone has to step in and be the circuit-breaker. Unfortunately I believe their behavior throughout this arbitration proceeding has only shown a reinforced need for intervention. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 20:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parting thoughts from Homunculus

I’ve tried over the last couple days to understand where other parties in this case are coming from, and have asked myself what I might have done better to avoid this situation from emerging.

On one hand, I’m not really sure. For my part I try to be fair and policy-compliant editor, and to be proactive about talking and editing to reach agreements, especially on the Falun Gong namespace. I also like to think my views on Falun Gong are nuanced, changeable, and well informed, and that I’ve made very significant contributions both here and in the broader topic area related to China. I think many of the complaints against me aren’t really fair or supported by evidence. There seem to be deep misunderstandings between people, and I don't know how it came to be this way; maybe it was always this way.

As to the other parties named here: my impression is that they hold very strong personal views on Falun Gong, and they've all made various statements before indicating the nature of those views. In general, I’ve found that their opinions seem to fall pretty far outside of the spectrum of mainstream discourse. On topics related to Falun Gong they seek to have their ideas represented and contrarian views or information minimized. They don't do much else in this namespace. I have found many of their edits problematic: sometimes they introduce factual inaccuracies, violate BLP policies, employ original research or poor sourcing, delete notable and reliably sourced information for unclear reasons, misrepresent reliable sources, etc. (diffs found throughout evidence submissions, in AE and my rebuttal to the AE, as well as on this page). When I see them make these edits, I challenge them by pointing out the content problems I perceive. I don’t think these editors like being challenged as such, and I think that’s probably part of the reason they would like me to go away. This is just my perspective. I'm speaking in general terms here, and I understand and appreciate that others see this dispute very, very differently.

I have been reading and re-reading the diffs and the evidence, and tried to see my conduct through other people’s eyes. I can't say I agree with the charges against me, though I do think I understand them somewhat better after this process. For instance, I recognized how my conduct can be sometimes be construed as exercising ownership over these articles; I often write long explanation of a sourcing issue or delve into some obscure historical or legal detail, and I consider this constructive, content-oriented discussion. To other people, it can look like an unreadable or intimidating wall of text, or may appear to be “lawyering” (as Colipon and Ohconfucius often say) that can deter participation. I’m not sure really how to resolve this issue, other than to be more mindful of it.

I’ve tried very hard to keep the discourse somewhat elevated, to be civil towards other editors, and focused on the content issues, rather than personalities. But sometimes I’ve failed at this. I’ve become exasperated, have personalized my comments too much (including here, probably), or have adopted an unnecessarily oppositional tone in discussions. I could argue that there are extenuating circumstances, but this is still not appropriate or necessary. These are all things to improve on, but maybe after a drink and a break in the mountains to recuperate.

Good luck to the arbitrators, and to everyone else here. Homunculus (duihua) 23:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by Tony1

I have little association with the matter, beyond a few copy-edits to Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident before it became an FA. I've looked occasionally at this article with suspicion that not all editors are aware of the site's pillar concerning neutrality (as far as I can see, Ohconfucius has worked hard to bring neutrality to the article). Falun Gong appears to be a highly emotive issue in the real world, yet more opaque through what seem to be unusual cross-mappings of government support/opposition and FG support/opposition. I hope the committee will pursue remedies that give us a neutral account of the topic, preferably written by those who have no affiliation with the real-world players.

CoI declaration: I know Ohconfucius's work well and admire it.

Tony (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Hi Tony. Since the page hasn't closed I'll just respond. As I wrote earlier, the way we determine what constitutes a neutral and fair representation of the sources is to sit down, discuss the evidence in a collegial way, and arrive at a solution with other editors. The problem with Ohconfucius is that he has forsaken this process, at least with respect to Falun Gong articles, and has unilaterally pursued the advancement of his point of view. For those who care to look, the evidence page provides several recent examples where he edit warred with no attempt to engage with or heed the suggestions, concerns, or questions of other editors. The diffs provided concerning the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident showed that another editor was pointing out substantial, evidence-based problems that Ohconfucius' edits were introducing. He categorically dismissed these as "moans" from a “suspected Falun Gong meatpuppet” (apparently “suspected” as such only by Ohconfucius after he got into a content disagreement with him!) and decided he would simply ignore them.

We haven’t even examined the edits, yet. Among other things, Ohconfucius found it fit to replace references to books published by the Oxford University Press (and others) with Chinese government newspapers, and added other controversial claims supported only by Chinese government-affiliated websites. He misquoted and misrepresented the positions of reliable sources repeatedly, removed highly notable and reliably sourced information that conflicted with the government’s official narrative, engaged in original synthesis, deleted Washington Post reports about how the event led to an increase in torture and abuse against Falun Gong by the Chinese government, and so on and so on. Does that sound particularly neutral to you? All the while he did not discuss, despite being asked to nicely. And repeatedly.

In my evidence submission and on this page, I have not bothered to engage in that kind of post hoc content/editing analysis, because it’s not the point of these proceedings and the conversation here would have been five times as long. It is difficult for the arbitrators to assess content issues, which is why we focus on behavior.

We’re here because these editors decided that they didn’t want to edit by consensus anymore, but instead attack and discredit other editors they were in a content dispute with. TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by others: