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It would probably be best to apply discretionary sanctions by motion and revisit this in a month or so. Discretionary sanctions are clearly warranted, and their existence might embolden admins to get a bit more involved (on the other hand, sometimes I think they're just a crutch for admins who lack the community confidence that normally undergirds administrative decisions, but hey...)<p>I'm really not enthused about a case here unless you're prepared to hand out a bunch of topic bans, or some clear guidelines for dealing with single-purpose agenda accounts and sockpuppetry on the topic. The worst-case scenario is an inconclusive 3-month-long, 40-party steel cage match that results in a remedy of discretionary sanctions. So if you accept the case, please consider some sort of proactive approach to avoid that outcome. And Happy New Year! :) '''[[User:MastCell|MastCell]]'''&nbsp;<sup>[[User Talk:MastCell|Talk]]</sup> 22:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
It would probably be best to apply discretionary sanctions by motion and revisit this in a month or so. Discretionary sanctions are clearly warranted, and their existence might embolden admins to get a bit more involved (on the other hand, sometimes I think they're just a crutch for admins who lack the community confidence that normally undergirds administrative decisions, but hey...)<p>I'm really not enthused about a case here unless you're prepared to hand out a bunch of topic bans, or some clear guidelines for dealing with single-purpose agenda accounts and sockpuppetry on the topic. The worst-case scenario is an inconclusive 3-month-long, 40-party steel cage match that results in a remedy of discretionary sanctions. So if you accept the case, please consider some sort of proactive approach to avoid that outcome. And Happy New Year! :) '''[[User:MastCell|MastCell]]'''&nbsp;<sup>[[User Talk:MastCell|Talk]]</sup> 22:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

=== Statement by Abd ===
In response to a question from a non-editor regarding allegations that [[User:William M. Connolley|William M. Connolley]] had been abusing administrative privileges to maintain [[Global warming]] in a preferred state, an OTRS volunteer recently stated that WMC had lost those privileges over an unrelated matter. This was not correct. My original interactions with WMC were over [[Global warming]] and related behavior, and I had warned him about use of tools while involved, and ultimately presented some evidence relevant to this in [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley]]. I was not claiming that he was involved with [[Cold fusion]], he wasn't. He was involved with me, personally, over my questioning his use of tools at [[Global warming]], as well as a few other matters. The history of [[Global warming]] shows long-term and biased administrative involvement, on the part of a number of administrators, some of whom did not personally edit the article, but who frequently intervened to protect it through blocks, and when a neutral administrator protected the article -- against these administrators! -- WMC, quite involved, lifted the protection and the administrator threw up her hands in despair.

That this case is being filed by an apparently neutral party is of interest as a new approach. As I understand the filing, no specific charges are being made about particular editors by naming them, they are asserted to be "involved," which is not reprehensible in itself. MastCell's suggestion to implement discretionary sanctions by motion might be a first step, but there has been long-term problematic behavior, for years. An injunction against those involved using administrative tools on the family of articles and other involved editors may also be in order. In reviewing the situation, certain names came up again and again, preferentially warning and blocking accounts on one side of disputes (and at one time this included regular checkuser based purely on apparent point of view of editors and without documentation and reports, but this situation has apparently been improved with the resignation of the checkuser in question), and for a clique of editors, maintaining the article in a preferred state, conveying certain impressions to readers, and disallowing reliably-sourced material that might appear to convey an opposite impression, seemed to take precedence over negotiating consensus. Tag-team reversion was the norm, most frequently bald reverts.

As to personal point of view on global warming, I'm probably far closer to the position of WMC, Stephen Schulz, Kim Dabelstein Petersen, and others whose names became very familiar as I reviewed the history of revert warring on the article, than I am to the position of skeptics. But this is an encyclopedia, and neutrality is a core policy, requiring negotiation consistent with sourcing and notability guidelines, and that, then, requires the protection of minority opinion against a majority with administrative privileges. I do believe that ArbComm should address this in some way.

As an example of long-term effect, I need only point at the Scibaby affair, which began with preferential use of tools against the original Scibaby account. Some editors, abused, do not go away quietly, and, then, massive range-blocks were used in a futile attempt to prevent Scibaby from socking, with massive collateral damage. There has to be a better way. --[[User:Abd|Abd]] ([[User talk:Abd|talk]]) 23:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


=== Statement by [[User:2over0|2over0]] ===
=== Statement by [[User:2over0|2over0]] ===

Revision as of 23:55, 30 December 2009

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Climate Change   30 December 2009 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Venezuelan politics (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 20 Apr 2024 04 May 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Conflict of interest management 13 Apr 2024
Mzajac 7 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing none (orig. case) 30 April 2024
Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 4 none (orig. case) 8 May 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration

Climate Change

Initiated by tedder (talk) at 02:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Article editors (> 30 edits in past 90 days)
(third pass at involved parties)
Top talkpage editors (top 5, out of 76 over 30 edits in 90 days)
Pass 1 and Pass 2 users here

...The following are below the "550 edits" threshold but were originally named.

Administrators (involved in an admin capacity)

* Editor/admin has been notified about this case.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Tedder

In most pages related to climate change, editors have shown an astounding amount of editwarring, ownership of talk pages (!), tendentious editing, and a refusal to bend to any consensus. Some of the articles include these:

This issue, besides consuming an amazing amount of space on their respective talk pages, also spill over to WP:RFPP, WP:AN3, and WP:ANI on a very regular basis. Here are some examples that are currently live on ANI, plus the last one, which is from my own (admin) involvement in the situation.

Note the list of users involved is a partial list; it's a list of major editors I quickly identified and is not intended to be comprehensive. Some of these editors are certainly "overinvolved", others may not be.

Response to Jayron32
Including Ten* was an accident, but I included you on purpose because you've made admin actions related to these pages. tedder (talk) 04:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(reply x2) I'm not implicating anyone- I just did a survey of editors and admins who are involved, not editors who are in the wrong in some way. tedder (talk) 04:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(reply x3, I think) Probably worth taking this off the case (ie to a talk page), but you're just included for having made an admin action, not for doing something wrong. In other words, you're an admin who has been involved in trying to help settle disputes. tedder (talk) 04:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response to arbitration, as of this edit
I'll go through and weed/sort the list of editors by involvement- I request 24 hours to get this done. tedder (talk) 04:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I modified the above editor/admin list. It turns out 'narrowing' it to editors with more than 30 edits among those four pages (eight, because I counted the talk pages) in the past three months is too large of a list- 233 editors. I chose an arbitrary "550 combined edits" threshold to capture the top dozen editors. Honestly, it's arbitrary, as there are many editors below that limit that should be included.
I also manually tabulated admins who had protected those articles or talk pages in the past three months and put those stats up also. I did not look at other admin actions (blocking), nor did I correlate their involvement on talk pages.
For completeness, 178 editors made > 30 talkpage edits, 93 editors (presumably the same ones) made > 30 article edits. Let me know if I should notify the users and admins that I've added to this list, or if you'd like me to share the results and/or slice/dice them in some way. I also didn't try adding any other articles to the list- I suspect my list of four articles is incredibly incomplete. tedder (talk) 06:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Guettarda

Thanks for context on Boris/arritt. It makes me think something is Wrong with the automated system I used to capture top contributors. I'll re-evaluate, I suspect it looked at all edits to a page, not the last 3 months. tedder (talk) 15:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Third pass at involved parties

My code to find involved editors was incorrect- I believe it was finding editors involved 90+ days ago, not 0-90 days. Some interesting things surface here- some editors are very involved on the talkpage, some are also involved on both. Why am I simply using statistics rather than diffs to specific edits? This is simply to open a case, not to drag out specific evidence.

For instance, it shows that User:ChrisO has almost 10% of the total edits to articles over the past 90 days, and User:Tony Sidaway has 9% of the total talk page edits in the past 90 days. Even ignoring content, that shows a degree of ownership.

This is from looking at four articles only- if expanded to other articles, it would probably be more telling, especially once all the spillover to ANI, AN3, and RFPP is shown. tedder (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TenOfAllTrades

I'm not entirely sure why I'm listed as a party – of the five articles listed by Tedder, I've edited only one (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and made only two edits ever – but here we go.

That said, I freely acknowledge that my lone two edits were reverts. The first revert was of a minority POV-pusher with a week-old account, who has been edit warring since he arrived and had already been blocked once for his conduct at these articles, including making exactly the same edits: Marknutley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), User talk:Marknutley#Blocked. My second revert was of GoRight, who 'undid' my edit without explanation or discussion of any kind [1] after being encouraged to get involved by Marknutley: [2]. (Marknutley, at his 3RR limit for the day, contacted GoRight to seek instructions on how to file a – inaccurate – 3RR report on William M. Connolley. I need not remind the ArbCom of GoRight's past history with global warming topics in general and William Connolley in particular.) GoRight promptly reverted me a second time, at which point I declined further involvement.

I would endorse a 1RR limit on climate change articles, as well as extended semiprotection of the articles in this area. There seems to be a painful influx of blog-driven agenda-pushing, and it is making it impossible for moderate, more experienced editors to get anything done. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) Literaturegeek

I have never edited any climate change related article but I have recently been following the drama on and off on article talk pages in recent months after the climate change email hacking incident became global news. I have read various disputes on a number of noticeboards over the years. There are intense emotions regarding this subject, I have been tempted to inject myself as a voice of reason into discussions but due to the abuse and character assasinating I have always felt repelled from doing so. Basically there are two extremes. One side wants any and all criticism labeled as fringe and deleted. Typically ad hominen attacks and comparing apples and oranges tactics are employed to shoot down their opponents by comparing them to AIDS denialists, antiscientists and homeopathic believers and so forth instead of addressing what needs to be addressed and that is the sources, applying standards such as WP:DUE and WP:NPOV. Here is an extreme example of extremist viewpoints of an ip editor comparing skeptics to the holocaust.[3], [4] Then from the other extreme accusing man made global warming advocates of being part of a global socialist agenda.[5] One extreme trys to violate WP:UNDUE by giving undue weight to minority viewpoints, using primary sources to debunk secondary sources and so forth and even promoting inappropriately conspiracy theories. I believe the fringe noticeboard is abused as a place to "take down" opposing views. Disputes are often personalised, with allegations of being paid by the oil companies or paid by the carbon tax industry. I think that most (but not all) editors who are a voice of reason and who are willing to set their viewpoints aside and follow WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV have been chased away by the intense and abusive atmosphere. The result is we are left with extremists on both sides. I would therefore urge arbcom to accept this long-over due case. It is my view that for this dispute to be resolved that it needs to be seen as primarily an WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV issue as well as behavioural issue as well. Minority viewpoints involving scholarly disagreements and controversies should be given low weight, not simply edit warred out of articles mercilessly. If arbcom sides with one side over the other this dispute will be perpetuated for goodness knows how long and will never be resolved. What is needed is calm to be restored so the climate related articles become attractive for people with level heads to edit without being attacked. I hope that my post gives some insite and in the end helps to resolve this dispute.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If one is to look at these people's articles, Richard_Lindzen#Expert_witness_fees_and_expenses, Fred_Singer#Consulting, they describe connections to oil companies and rightly so, but when conflicts of interest related to making money from carbon trading is cited it is edit warred out of articles leading to page locking.[6], [7],[8] Why should one COI be allowed but another type of COI be edit warred out of articles? Then here we are again with this article,Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change and Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident locked due to a content dispute where both sides have dug in their heels.

John Quiggin I am aware of no controversy in the public or amongst scientists about passive smoking but see from the article page there was some industry distorted scientific studies but I think comparing apples and oranges in and of itself is not scientific to prove a scientific point. There is controversy over some of the data used by climatologists, Stephen_McIntyre#The_Hockey_stick_controversy and here Hockey stick controversy and you will see that there are legitamate scientific disagreement about the statistical data voiced by groups such as American Geophysical Union and the American Statistical Association. I am not an expert in climate literature and I am not here to define the "truth" of climate change. I agree that the mainstream view must be given the most prominance, of course, but criticisms shouldn't be edit warred out of articles; well sourced controversies and scholarly disagreements should be included following policies such as WP:DUE and WP:NPOV, that is all that I am saying. I just saw this pop up on my watch list and felt appealing for the policies of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE could resolve this dispute. I still believe that WP:FRINGE is often being misapplied or sometimes even abused as a way to get around WP:NPOV which is a policy and WP:RS; I have seen it done on other articles unrelated to climate change. I shall bow out gracefully now and hope that my posting helps encourage some common sense solution to this dispute. Best wishes to everyone here and have a happy new year! :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

John Quiggin I never said those agencies were opposed to man made climate theory. What I meant was what I said above but to be clearer, that there is some scientific debate over flaws over some of the statistical data. This is part of the problem, I make a small comment in a neutral posting about this wide ranging dispute and then it is taken out of context and fringe is brought up again. This is one reason people are intimidated from voicing any sort of view on any aspect or controversy whatsoever on these articles. Good luck and I wish you the best in this arbcom.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beeblebrox

I have been only marginally involved in these matters, and then only in an administrative capacity. While I was the one "holding" the protection on Scientific opinion on climate change I was astounded at the amount of arguing over minutiae on the talk page. The sheer volume and pace of it would be off-putting to most editors that do not wish to make editing and arguing over this group of articles the sole focus of their Wikipedia activities. Several of these articles have had to fully protected repeatedly to stop edit warring, sometimes over the pettiest of details. I believe, as do many others, that climate change will be the defining issue of the coming years, and as such these issues are likely to persist for a very long time. I also suspect there may be some users involved here who have conflicts of interest, of either a fiduciary or philosophical nature, that have clouded their judgement in these matters. As such, I believe all articles related to climate change/global warming/carbon emissions etc should be put on indefinite probation, with sanctions for those who edit disruptively. I would add that this problem is coming from all sides, from those who feel climate change must be addressed now to those who believe it is a hoax, and everyone in between, and as such general sanctions rather than targeting specific camps or individuals seems the best solution. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party John Quiggin

I haven't been editing these pages for a while, but I would like to put a view directly opposed to that of LiteratureGeek above. In scientific terms, these pages call for a straightforward application of WP:FRINGE. There is no difference, in terms of the unqualified position of all relevant scientific bodies between this issue and those of the examples given by LiteratureGeek or, to take one with which I am most familiar with, having participated in an almost identical Wiki debate, Passive smoking. In both cases, the relevant scientific bodies are unanimous in their view, and the antiscience position emerges from a set of thinktanks (almost 100 per cent overlap between the two), a handful of dissident scientists (high overlap) and a body of public/political opinion driven by wishful thinking. The only difference is that the antiscience position on the issue is held by a large and influential body of political opinion in the US and some other English speaking countries. User:GoRight self-identifies with this body. And this difference is only a reflection of the Global Viewpoint problem. AIDS denialism is, or was, similarly politically influential in South Africa, and if a large proportion of our editors came from SA we would no doubt have the same kinds of problems on articles on this topic. The correct solution is to enforce WP:WEIGHT and explicitly label views opposed to those of all major scientific communities as WP:FRINGE in all articles concerned with the facts of the matter. Antiscience views belong in Politics of global warming and nowhere else.JQ (talk) 04:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to LiteratureGeek who says " you will see that there are legitamate (sic) scientific disagreement about the statistical data, with groups such as American Geophysical Union and the American Statistical Association." What do you mean by this? Both organizations endorse the scientific consensus position as do all national academies of science, major scientific organizations etc. The opinions of non-experts such as you and me, both regarding the substantive truth of AGW and the balance of opinion in the scientific literature should carry zero WP:WEIGHT here. We have authoritative statements from the most reliable sources - anything else is automatically WP:FRINGE and needs to be treated as such, just as it is on topics like creationism where the antiscience viewpoint isn't supported by such a large group of editors. JQ (talk) 07:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by unnamed party, Wikidemon

I have not participated much on climate change articles so I have very little by way of evidence, opinion, or concern as to whether this matter is suitable for arbitration at this time. For the record, although there are some harsh but fair words exchanged between me and User:Rd232 on the AN/I thread cited in the arbitration request, I have no beef with RD232 and as far as I am concerned that issue is closed. We've since had an open and supportive discussion on our respective talk pages and I think we're in agreement, including being comfortable with where we agree to disagree. I'm not so upbeat about the involvement of some of the other editors, as I've seen considerable edit warring, incivility, argument over process, a rush to accuse people of bad faith, and a breakdown of communication among those with different opinions, all during my very brief and peripheral participation here. It's been quite a ride - I've been hauled before AN/I, threatened with a block, and called a climate change denier and member of a "clique of right-wing editors" perpetrating "one of the most blatant acts of bad faith I've ever seen on Wikipedia",[9] all for making an earnest but perhaps hasty attempt to edit content. Wasn't it less than a year ago that stood here accused of being part of the liberal cabal? *sigh* When you dip your toe in the water and something bites you, that's probably a good sign to find a different pond. Even if I did have some constructive ideas to add to climate change articles, or help to offer ArbCom here, it's just not worth subjecting myself to that.

I do wish everyone the best and hope for a productive outcome, though. Per a funny little template I've been working on lately, Smiley Sorry!

I'm hoping to step back and spend a little more time with my funny little template, and less time making other editors feel bad or allowing them to get to me. Best, - Wikidemon (talk) 04:16, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayron32

Like TenOfAllTrades and Beeblebrox, I am unsure why I have been named as party to this case. I agree with the filing, in that I have observed widespread conflict along a wide spectrum of Climate Change-related articles, and it is getting very out of hand. This is exactly the sort of thing that ArbCom needs to step in to work out, as I think that both sides have failed to reach any thing resembling resolution on this, and it has been non-stop for weeks now.

All of THAT having been said, I am still unclear on why I am named a party here. The sum total of my involvement in these articles is as follows:

  • I protected Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about 7-8 hours ago as a result of a request at WP:ANI. I had not edited that article before, indeed I had never even watchlisted it before the request, but upon reviewing the history, I thought it prudent to enact protection to discourage widespread edit warring.
  • I closed a discussion at WP:ANI that was getting out of control over the insertion of a POV tag by Prodego on the article Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. The discussion was going nowhere (IMHO) and was looking to decend into some incivil territory, so I thought it prudent to close it. Others disagreed, and it was reopened. I got a bit pissy on my talk page over it, and I am sorry about that.

Beyond these two actions, I have not once, to my knowledge, ever made a substantive edit to any article or talk page or discussion regarding climate change or any article thereof. I would appreciate it if the person who started this thread could elaborate on which of these two actions made me involved in the dispute as a party. --Jayron32 04:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to tedders reply to me: So, being an uninvolved admin who acted in good faith on a request to stop an edit war makes me in the wrong here? How so? Can you elaborate on where my protection of that article was against any policy or guideline or where making a single admin action makes me party to this dispute? I just want to know where that went wrong so that I can avoid misusing my tools in this way in the future... --Jayron32 04:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to tedders reply to me replying to him replying to me (I think I got those all). So, if I am involved, perhaps you can tell everyone which side of the debate I am involved on. Because I certainly don't know, and it would be enlightening to see where in this dispute my actions show me as being on one side or the other? --Jayron32 04:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reply yada yada tedders blah blah blah: OK. Cool. I just misunderstood the nature of ArbCom cases. I've not often been named as a party to a case, indeed only once, and I've not seen where someone had been named as a party to a case where the originator of the case was not asking for some direct sanctions against said parties. I was thinking of "involved" as meaning what the WP:INVOLVED policy says 'invovled' means, which is the only context of the use of the term involved has come up. I apologize for being so confused here, since you were using an oft-used term at Wikipedia in a context it is not often used in. Sorry, it's my bad. Carry on. --Jayron32 04:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JohnWBarber

Dammit, I agree with everything Wikidemon said as far as general points (I'll assume he's right about the specifics regarding himself). Even though I lean toward the climate-is-changing side and made a few edits which have stuck in the article, crap like this [10], from User:Scjessey, who was topic banned from another political area by ArbCom in the past, and POV-pushing, gaming-the-system crap like this [11] [12] caused me to walk away from the article. Any editor who actually wants to collaborate with others to create an NPOV article would be crazy to touch Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident -- or any politically controversial article on Wikipedia. I suppose it's not always easy to see just what a piece of crap a POV-pushed article is unless you know something about the topic -- but believe me (or do some research yourself), it's a piece-of-crap article that makes Wikipedia look pathetic and does no service for our readers. This will continue to be the case with many (maybe most) articles on controversial topics until ArbCom gets serious with some of these editors, not just Scjessey, who have been POV pushing for some time, with many complaints brought up, usually not dealt with (or treated with kid gloves) by arbs or admins. You know, you don't have to put up with POV pushers: And if you're worried that enforcing NPOV editing policy with sanctions is too distasteful, you could always enforce the behavioral violations around the POV-pushing incidents with punctilio: You point out when they violate policies on edit warring, incivility, gaming the system, battleground behavior, talk-page behavioral standards, NPA -- and clip their wings with severe topic bans and blocks. Or continue playing Whack-a-Mole with repeat offenders as if they're not harming the encyclopedia much. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 05:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mackan79 wrote: An improvement would certainly require something delicate, in which somehow agenda-driven SPAs were kept at bay, and the trained scientists were made to be more judicious in their interactions. Appoint a small committee of admins to continue monitoring the pages. "Delicacy" here involves, basically, an ability to deliver blocks and topic bans with prudence, polite diplomacy and warnings at first and light treatment for minor violations and initial violations (and a recognition that there's a difference between heated debate and outright incivility). Doing this requires ongoing knowledge of just what's happening to the articles and on their talk pages, and that probably means that we need someone who has some interest in the general subject of science or politics or both but who isn't so gung ho on this particular subject that he'd want to take sides. I've seen two admins with all of those skill sets: Tim Vickers and MastCell (whose past participation on the talk page shouldn't matter). An ongoing monitoring committee, which can watch the situation over time, would do a better job. This is the only way I can see that Wikipedia is going to be able to deal with articles that attract massive numbers of editors debating how to cover a very controversial topic. If ArbCom doesn't appoint a committee and takes this case (and I recommend that ArbCom do both), you'll take two or three months, probably not address some of the bad actors, and the article will just get taken over by one POV side or the other while everyone is too tired to want to do the one thing we should be, need to be doing -- civilly discussing differences of opinion over how to cover a topic in an encyclopedic fashion and coming to consensus on it. THAT is what success would look like -- not having an ArbCom case exhaust everyone and leaving some POV faction in control of an important [13] article. Just because the matter isn't likely to come back to ArbCom for a while won't mean you've solved the problem. Mackan correctly notes that the problem extends beyond SPAs to long-term editors (although he's not nearly severe enough in addressing their ongoing, intensely bad behavior). I've left an additional comment on the talk page. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 14:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Unitanode

I just wanted to state that like Wikidemon -- but to a lesser extent -- I dipped my toe in editing a BLP about one of the skeptics (I don't remember which one right now). I tried to work with Connolley and Peterson, in an attempt to deal with some potentially problematic BLP stuff, as well as serious NPOV concerns. Connolley was very antagonistic, even changing and removing talkpage comments from me and a couple of other editors. After that experience, I watched in discouragement as all balance was removed from the article about the Emails, and anyone who attempted to apply NPOV was shouted down on the talkpage. I stayed out, based on my previous experience with some of the editors involved, but the climate articles -- and the behavior surrounding them -- are becoming a bit of a shame to WP. Some type of remedy needs to be passed to fix this, and to provide guidance to editors at those pages. UnitAnode 06:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ChyranandChloe

I'm not listed as an involved party, so I'll be brief. Dispute resolution has not been exhausted. There are no ongoing edit wars, no serious personal attacks, no RFC/U, few if none administrative actions. A RfC entails outside opinion, the two listed on GW are mainly continued discussions from editors already involved.[14][15] The ANI case is more descriptive. The discussion lacks actionable, verifiable, reasonable substance. Talk page guidelines and forum are the real issues. I think this is silly sensationalism, but acknowledge that a case to set precedent on talk page mechanics would be good. Controversy can be attributed to holiday rush and climategate, it can be brought up again if it doesn't cool down. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Addum, I apologize to the arbitration committee for a factual inaccuracy in my previous statement. There has been considerable degree of administrative action as provided by Tedder, since I actively track Global warming and Scientific opinion on climate change which are not protected. I would also like to add my statement of confusion, since some of the involved editors listed do not engage in discussion across all the pages listed and that this request may be the culmination of many disputes not one. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GoRight

I shall make no statement here until I see a clear articulation of what the dispute actually is that Tedder seeks to have addressed. I certainly feel that there is plenty of room for improvement in the atmosphere on the GW articles, so to the extent that something to improve that might actually come out of this I am more than happy to participate.

I would suggest that Tedder should try to formulate a specific articulation of what the dispute is and what the specific results he would hope to achieve actually are.--GoRight (talk) 06:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Tedder's list of pages I would think that a couple of representative BLPs should also be included if this goes anywhere, Fred Singer, William M. Gray, Richard Lindzen, James Hansen, and Michael E. Mann are all likely to be representative candidates for controversy. I am not suggesting that you need to be redoing your analysis, nor am I suggesting that the all need to be included. It's just something to think about if you want to hit the trouble spots on the AGW pages. --GoRight (talk) 07:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to other editors

  • I will also endorse Literaturegeek's summarization of the prevailing atmosphere as being generally even handed and accurate. --GoRight (talk) 21:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC) Moved down from above for consistency.[reply]
  • @Guettarda: "Oh, and by the way - I'm not sure what sort of a time frame Tedder is using to pick the "top" editors, but whatever it is, it's far too broad if it includes an editor who hasn't edited (at least not under than user name) since May of 2008." - A most comical statement. I have no doubt that Guettarda knows full well that the editor to which he refers is also listed under a different name with more recent edits. (Diffs available upon request.) And he wonders why people call him disingenuous? His comment is clearly intended to deceive. --GoRight (talk) 09:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hereby endorse Arzel's statement as being an accurate representation of how the GW pages are being conducted. --GoRight (talk) 21:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Stephan Schulz: In response to your comments regarding socking, we should point out that the one-sided (or should I say apparently one-sided since the skeptics lack the Scibaby rubber stamp to run checkuser against the pro-AGW editors) nature of the issue is most likely yet another indicator of the problem with the GW pages. Why are people creating socks? Because Team AGW has been successful in squelching any dissenting views from the GW pages and banning those who insist that Wikipedia should present a truly NPOV version of reality but who lack the political instincts to keep themselves from being banned. You want less socking from the skeptic side of the debate? Allow a truly NPOV presentation of reality.

    The situation is so bad at this point that we are having edit wars over putting up the POV template which specifically highlights that it should be left up as long as there is an on-going dispute AND that its presence doesn't even mean that the article actually IS violating WP:NPOV but rather that it only signifies that a dispute exists and directs the readers to the discussion. Ironically, Tedder was himself caught up in one such dispute. And as a result of his actions there WMC began a scorched earth crusade against him to have him sanctioned for simply trying to do the right thing. Now WMC claims below that Tedder wasn't involved. Go Figure.

    The root of the problem here is that a great many people, and even neutral editors with Wiki experience who happen by as we see in their statements here, all agree that there is a valid NPOV dispute over many of these pages. Yet simply putting up a POV template is too much for Team AGW. When there is a dispute over the neutrality of an article the POV template should go up with no questions asked and anyone removing it before a consensus to do so has been demonstrated should be summarily blocked, IMHO. There's a actionable step that Arbcom can take to insure that minority views are not completely railroaded off the project. Without this protection the AGW proponents simply remove the tag and stonewall any efforts to put it up, thus removing even the tiniest hint that their edifice may be tarnished. I argue that it is this unrelenting demand that it be their view and only their view that prevails which is much of the source of both the socking AND the current problems in this area. --GoRight (talk) 22:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I endorse the general spirit of MastCell's comment in terms of downplaying the drama if we are just going to end up with discretionary sanctions. I will also say that discretionary sanctions may on the surface appear to be a neutral solution, but in reality they are not. They are biased against a minority POV as well as against new editors. These discretionary blocks and bans will inevitably be disproportionately targeted at those groups who are least able to defend themselves. We all know that admins will be very reluctant to impose any sanctions on Team AGW members but will have no qualms whatsoever about slapping down the newbies and minority voices. The net effect, then, will be to simply increase the incentive to create socks or engage in other methods of circumvention rather than decrease it. The solution to the problem is to stop the suppression of legitimate points of view, not to give the suppressors an even bigger advantage. The latter may calm things down a bit by eliminating one side in the wars, but it will do nothing to achieve the neutrality we are supposed to be striving for. You will, in effect, be trading our principles for a little peace and quiet. That's not a good trade. --GoRight (talk) 22:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ("uninvolved") Awickert

4 bullets in 2 sections for rapid readability:

  1. Regarding civility and efficiency. Synopsis: Don't think RfAr can help.
    • I very much want the global warming pages to be more civil and productive
    • Civility on these pages requires not only the tough skill of polite online conversation between people who strongly disagree with one another, but also the ability to shrug aside consistent aggravation by sockpuppets, trolls and single-purpose accounts while trying to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. Arguments tend to spiral out of control as one insult "deserves" another and another.
    • I don't think an arbcomm "decision from on high" can create civility. No amount of legislation can make these talk pages more productive. What is required is a universal will to rise above unkind words and be the big person in each and every situation.
  2. Something that may help. Synopsis: Official clarification of quasi de facto peer-review requirement
    • One item that would help is extreme clarity in Wikipedia policy, especially with respect to sourcing. In particular, it would be nice WP:RS could clarify/officialize the quasi de facto peer review requirement for science on these highly-controversial pages. Very specific Wiki-legislation could pave the way for fewer arguments. I honestly don't know if this is an appropriate desire to come via arbitration, and suspect that it is something that should be done via other avenues.

Awickert (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by non-party Mackan79

It's too bad, but I am skeptical of what ArbCom can do in a case brought by a relatively uninvolved party. I'm used to seeing ArbCom step in where two or more people have come to their wits' ends with each other, and need arbitration. I'm less sure what ArbCom does when someone else says "hey, look at this mess here." Do editors have evidence? I've seen some things that concern me, but certainly I don't have any evidence.

That said, there is a real problem with the influx of socks and SPAs in this area, and at least partly as a result of this, the way in which new editors are roundly chewed up and spit out. In my view the biting goes further than is justified, which I say largely because there are very significant problems in these articles, and as such I think the energy spent fighting off new accounts would in many cases be better spent addressing the problems. Unfortunately when I see basically no one take such an approach, it's hard to argue that ArbCom should peel off the more militant long-term users, since very well this could end up just turning the articles over to the SPAs. What's worse, I think some of the more militant long-term editors are also very good editors, and while I suspect there are some bad ones, it is not clear to me how ArbCom could weed them out. An improvement would certainly require something delicate, in which somehow agenda-driven SPAs were kept at bay, and the trained scientists were made to be more judicious in their interactions. Good luck! Mackan79 (talk) 08:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guettarda

On one hand, I don't see how a few RFCs on content issues scattered across, different articles involving different editors constituted "prior attempts at dispute resolution". A thoughtful editor can learn from a user conduct RFC, but not from an RFC on a page s/he isn't actively following.

There are real issues here. Tedders' protection of an article he was editing and Prodego's editing through page protection are the sort of thing that isn't helpful on pages when tempers are frayed. But the real issue revolves around the Climate Research Unit emails. It has produced a stream of people determined to "fix" Wikipedia's "liberal bias". Solomon's attack on William M. Connolley only exacerbated the problem. (See discussion here, for example). Not on one article, but across a slew of them. The underlying BLP issues also create problems - the involved scientists have been accused of "criminal" behaviour and professional misconduct, often by bloggers. Dealing with people determined to add material like that to articles only makes matters worse, especially when you get called "disingenuous"[16] for suggesting that the BLP policy applies to pages other than actual biographies.

I would be happy to see a solution that facilitated editing. But what solution? 1RR restrictions don't stop edit warring when there are a dozen editors on each "side". Restrictions along the lines of the Obama article probation might help (if people are willing to police the articles), but quite frankly the arbcomm is too slow and do much good here, and tends to be too much of a blunt instrument. Two months into the future we're probably wondering what all the fuss was about.

Oh, and by the way - I'm not sure what sort of a time frame Tedder is using to pick the "top" editors, but whatever it is, it's far too broad if it includes an editor who hasn't edited (at least not under than user name) since May of 2008.

@GoRight: Raymond is listed twice - as Boris and as User:Raymond arritt. Since he hasn't used the second account in a year and a half, the only way that Tedder would have picked up both accounts is if he delved into a lot more than 3 months of edits. If he had listed only one name, I'd assume he knew they were the same person. But he listed both, suggesting that he cast a ridiculously wide net. (I wasn't 100% sure if it was common knowledge that Boris and RA were the same person; I wasn't about to out him.) Guettarda (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on the "wide net" idea: Tedder lists WMC as having 3685 edits, which exceeds his total edits in the last 3 months by almost 1200 edits; Stephan Schulz's listed total of 2384 exceeds his total edits in the last 3 months by 850; UBeR, attributed 1843 edits actually has a total of 37 edits in the last 3 months and <100 edits in the last year. The only real, immediate problem with climate change articles dates to mid-November. Casting a net that probably goes back to 2007 (or earlier) makes no sense. Guettarda (talk) 15:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Coren - while I believe that the list of "involved" users is without focus, it also misses an awful lot of editors whose behaviour is problematic - the ones who refuse to assume good faith and poison the atmosphere, the ones who only show up when the articles are unprotected, edit-war for a bit, and then go silent. Honestly, if the committee wants to look at an area that's as broad as this one is (I'd guess ~50-100 articles) the list of involved editors needs to be considerably larger, not smaller. Which is, of course, why I think this isn't a problem that's better dealt with by the community than the arbcomm. Guettarda (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

This looks as if a blunderbuss is being fired at the problem. Too many parties, and the case stated in terms which are too general. Has anybody tried using the existing tools in the bag, like article parole and 1RR? Guy (Help!) 10:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by William M. Connolley

The list of parties needs to be fixed - Tedder is showing his lack of involvement in the basic disputes by errors in his list. Also, as previously noted, he has done it by historical trawling, not recent stuff.

  • RA *is* Boris
  • Tedder (despite being somewhat coy about his violation of 3RR) isn't a party to this case, he has no real involvement.
  • Adding signbot is just weird.
  • GoRight is a party.
  • Rdm2376 isn't a party.
  • Wknight94 isn't a party.
  • Stephan doesn't need to be a party twice over.
  • I can't see why Lar should be a party.
  • Beeblebrox isn't a party.

There are a variety of minor skeptics that ought to be thrown into the mix:

Whether they rise to the level of needing to be involved I don't know; that might depend on what arbcomm decides the dispute is about. I'm sure the more obvious ones will show up to give the obvious evidence.

It is instructive to look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Inappropriate editing of a protected page by Prodego. Here we have a simple case of edit-though-protection that ANI appears to be unable to resolve (just as it was unable to resolve Tedder's prior violation of 3RR and protect-favoured-version). This is a simple situation and yet something is preventing this from being realised.

If arbcomm thinks it can do better then perhaps it should have a go.

It seems odd to file this case without pointing to its obvious predecessor (you young folk nowadays have such short memories): Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2.

It also seems odd to file this without realising that some of this upsurge of nonsense is coming via the minor external right-wing press, e.g. [17] (reply: [18]) [19] (reply: [20]) who clearly haven't got a clue how wiki works.

JzG makes a good point about other options: 2/0 managed to tame Scientific opinion on climate change rather well.

William M. Connolley (talk) 11:06, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Addendum: a number of people are making statements here as "neutral" when they are clearly not so; Arzel is one obvious one (e.g. [21]) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Moreschi

This is a waste of time. Too unfocused and generalized for arbcom to even think about taking. If there are specific allegations of severe misconduct against a small number of editors then a case should be accepted upon those terms alone. As it is, if this is taken, it will simply degenerate into one massive free-for-all (sorry, clerks) that will make the EE mailing list case look like a teddy bears' picnic. This we know from past experience. There is no reason to think that normal editorial processes (aided by community-run 1RRs and topic paroles if necessary) will not work, rough-edged though they may be at times.

As a side-note, this is a hot-button topic that's only going to get hotter, if you pardon the pun. Opinion polls show a growing disparity (even in fairly secular countries such as the UK) between the views of scientists (who largely accept both the reality and the mechanisms of global warming), and the views of the general public. For the purposes of Wikipedia, WP:FRINGE and WP:RS dictate that the former must prevail, but inevitably this will not happen without significant conflict. There's little we can do about this, but we need to recognise the fact.

It is also worth pointing out that I have done a few blocks here recently, nearly all Scibaby socks and other disruptive SPA accounts with tendentious tactics and suspiciously good knowledge of wikimarkup. Moreschi (talk) 11:15, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by A Quest for Knowledge

As a previously uninvolved editor, I think I can provide a neutral and unbiased assessment of the situation at least as far as the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article goes. Basically, we have three groups of editors there. One group wants to maximize the damage of the so-called "Climategate" controversy as much as possible. The second group wants to minimize it as much as possible - even to the point of pretending that a controversy doesn't exist. The third group just wants to write a good article in accordance with policies and guidelines on neutrality and reliability. I consider myself to be part of this third group. We've been able to deal with the first group though various forms of blocking. However, we have not be able to address the issue of the second group. Thus far, repeated reminders about policy (particularly neutrality and undue weight) have not worked. The issue was brought up at NPOV Noticeboard, and an uninvolved editor has agreed that the Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident article does not follow our neutrality policy. You can read the uninvolved editor's opinion here. But the 'minimizer' group of editors are still refusing to write the article in accordance with our neutrality policy. The issue was brought up (by another editor) at the WP:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-12-10/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident and you can read my comments there. I've only been an active editor of Wikipedia for about a year, but am shocked and horrified by the amount of POV-pushing from both sides of the AGW divide. While there are a subset of neutral editors who actually want to follow our neutrality policy, the two warring factions see Wikipedia as a battleground for promoting their own POV regardless of WP:NPOV. This is the first time I've ever made a statement to ArbCom, so I apologize in advance to any newbie mistakes I might had made. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reponse to Jehochman

AFAIK, that problem has already been addressed. The outstanding issue is that we have established editors who are refusing to even admit that there's a controversy in articles about the controversy. Jehochman, I've worked with you in the past regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories so you know that I'm no fringe theorist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

When I have some time I'll recommend ways to reframe this request to make it more effective. In general I think the entire venue of dispute needs to be reviewed by ArbCom. In particular we have a problem with recycled, banned users and single purpose, agenda-driven accounts, as well as off-wiki calls to battle. Jehochman Brrr 12:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In combating the onslaught of bogus editing, some established editors may have unwittingly violated the principle the articles are not owned by any editor. Both problems need more attention. I've made a brief attempt at administrating in this area, and caught fire from the partisans. ArbCom could help. Jehochman Brrr 14:24, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BozMo

Per GoRight: When we know which of the complicated issues this turns out to be I may need to be added either as a party or as an admin. However at present I would suggest this Arbcom request should be rejected out of hand unless any issue which Arbcom action could resolve is succinctly expressed. Global Warming alone is I believe the most edited article on WP (so Raul654 said). Fishing through a large number of articles of this history length seems to me better left to future historians. --BozMo talk 14:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Count Iblis

We have been able to deal with the problems on climate change related pages in the last few years by separating the politics from the science using content forking. So, there exists a page exclusively devoted to the (mostly poltical) controversy on climate change. In the last few months some editors want to change this and write about sceptical views in the main global warming article. However, the main article gives the scientificn perspective and can only very briefly mention the political controversy. Like any other articcle on a scientific topic, only peer reviewed articles can be reliable enough to be used as sources.

Another successful action that we've taken a few years ago was exercising a strict control over the talk pages. Off topic comments are promptly deleted or archived. This allowed us to prevent soapboxing by sceptics who come to the global warming page to write things like: "The climate scientists are all wrong." Since sometimes you can have people who have genuine questions, we've created a FAQ on climate change to which we can refer to when closing a discussion.

These measures have been very successful. Note that the main global warming page is a FA. Then consider the fact that there are quite a few of tendentious editors who are actually tolerated as we don't need to restrict them under the current self imposed editing rules. So, if we're going to change these rules, then this will inevitably lead to topic bans for quite a few of the sceptical editors, the article will be on probation like the Israeli/Palestinian related articles are and ArbCom will have a full time job supervising all the climate change related articles. Count Iblis (talk) 14:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Uninvolved Party Arzel

As some others I have been following many of the Climate related articles for some time, but not actively editing since it was obvious that all of these articles are being controlled by a group of editors to a large degree. With the release of the Climategate emails I have become more involved in some of the articles but it is obvious to even the most uninvolved editor that some editors will not allow hardly any dissenting opinion to their belief of AGW, and when they do the research and/or opinion is labeled fringe and discredited.

Dogmatic views are also held with regards to only the inclusion of Peer Reviewed research that meets some unknown level. All research that would present an alternative view to the dogmatic view being presented is disregarded at hand either because the author is not qualified, does not have enough peer reviewed papers, has a COI, their research has been debunked, etc. McIntyre, for example, has been published in a peer reviewed journal, and is probably the most well known skeptic scientist, yet his research is rejected at hand because he doesn't have a PhD, doesn't have enough publications, and isn't a climatologist, even though his paper is a largely a statistical analysis. A big part of this dogmatic view is the absolute refusal to include anything that would suggest that the MWP or the LIA were more than a local incident since the minimization of these two incidents is the cornerstones to the whole AGW movement.

In the "real world" WP is beginning to be viewed as a propaganda tool for the whole AGW movement. The Climategate incident has revealed a very nasty truth about the research that has been done and the attempts to quiet those that would disagree. Some, and probably many of those same people are editing here to continue that dogma only furthering the belief that all climate related articles are being manipulated, much like the data, to promote one, and only one point of view. The actions of William Connolley are noted in the press, yet dismissed as if nothing had happened, yet the appearance of COI on many articles should be impossible to ignore. Some of my earliest work at WP involved the definition of specific types of Ponzi Schemes, yet I was notified that I had a COI because I assisted on a website to track and expose Ponzi schemes on the internet. Compared to the apparent COI by several editors here, what I did was nothing, for one I would not financially benefit one way or the other, but at least one editor here, and probably others, stands to benefit from the continued dogmatic push that AGW exists and that there is not dissention from this. Arzel (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Stephan Schulz

Climate change has been a contentious area on Wikipedia for a while, although it had settled down to a reasonable state. However, conflict has flared up again following the theft and publication of the CRU emails and subsequent milking of the event by the sceptic blogosphere and press. We are the target of an off-wiki witchhunt [22][23][24] with bogus claims (see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:William_M._Connolley_and_Global_Warming for a deconstruction). As a result, we see attacks like "human garbage" and "FOR 15 DOLLARS I CAN FIND WHERE PEOPLE LIVE". Moreover, one of the most prolific sockmasters has created more than 500 socks, 16 of these identified just yesterday, and there are additional cases of socking [25], [26], [27], all on the "sceptic/denial" side of the discussion. Even saintly editors will eventually run out of patience when they explain the difference between the Royal Society and the Heartland Institute as a scientific source to the 15th sock, only to have them edit war their POV in anyways and abandon the account for the for the next 10 "new" accounts.

I'm not sure if ArbCom can be useful here. I suspect the current level of disruption will settle down on its own, although the discussion will stay encumbered unless a way of dealing with the massive socking is found. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re. GoRight: WP:SPI is open to all editors.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Durova

Did no one see this coming?

It doesn't take much of a watchlist these days to see that global warming has become a hot dispute lately excuse the pun. It involves experienced editors who know how to walk the fine edge of policy and how to frame debates. A lot of short range debate has been happening (what constitutes a blockable edit war? what constitutes acceptable editing through protection?) without sufficient foresight to avoid the appearance of tendentious behavior.

The inevitable result is that good faith has worn thin. There's a real world political debate on this subject and it's not very far from the surface. Whether or not this case opens now, the situation shares a lot of traits with the leadup to the Obama arbitration. Unfortunately that means the editors in the middle who don't have a strong political view on the subject (or who set theirs aside) are getting pulled in both directions.

The best thing about this request is that it was filed by a nonpartisan editor. It's big and messy, which is typical of disputes that fester too long: it amalgamated. Although the size of it may seem daunting, the best long range choice for the arbitrators may be to accept the request as filed if they accept it at all. The disputants are experts at framing (social sciences) and there's a real danger of one side or the other attempting to begin the case on terms that prejudice its outcome and guarantee its return to yet another arbitration afterward. Be wary of measuring involvement based upon raw edit count: this is a real world hot potato and one does not need to edit a subject frequently to be tendentious. Durova390 16:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ZuluPapa5*

I support Tedder's statement "In most pages related to climate change, editors have shown an astounding amount of editwarring, ownership of talk pages (!), tendentious editing, and a refusal to bend to any consensus." And, I appreciate the effort he put into preparing this well intended ArbCom request, in addition to response folks have made. What concerns councenrs me is the resulting remedies in this case.

Scientific opinion on climate change (where Tedder blocked me and GoRight with WMC evasion), the page was tamed by self-restraining and remorseful editors who responded to 2/0 great efforts for peace. Yes, there should be administrative actions when editors are disrupting wiki. However, this issue may not be ripe for ArbCom action at this time. It is perhaps a serious warning for editors to reform themselves.

The productive path is to coordinate the articles with a Project Task Force. This offers hope that issues may be resolved in a Task Force before escalation. Forming a Task Force is by itself no simple cure, for overly aggressive or "owned" POV behavior. However, it provide a means for local governance, before polluting the notice boards with negativity and seeking higher dispute resolutions. Zulu Papa 5 ☆ (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kim Dabelstein Petersen

I'm confused. The editors named in this case, seems to have been selected as the editors who have the highest editcount on the articles since the articles were created? Apparently they aren't selected for any particular conduct other than having edited the page or commented on the talk-page. That seems to me to be a rather strange selection methodology. For instance UBeR's edit count since October is less than 50. Raymond arritt is an account that has been abandoned since May 30, 2008. And Sinebot ?! Am i missing something?

I concur with Stephan Schultz's comments above, but i do want to propose that if arbcom should take this case, that it at least gets reframed, possibly into more than one case (CRU specific ; climate change articles generic), as the issues are different, and that the involved parties/editors be pruned and expanded to match this. (the involved parties list should be changed anyways)

Finally i will add that i found the solution that 2/0 has imposed on Scientific opinion on climate change has been both beneficial, effective and fair (so kudos here). Such a solution could be useful on articles where tempers have flared, and should be used more often, instead of the full-protection lock-down. The unfortunate aspect of this is the lack of administrators to do so. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TS

The coverage of subjects related to global warming would probably benefit from another look--Jehochman recently told me it was a long time since we last had a related case (I think he was referring to the JonGwynne case). Since then we've seen a lot of clashes centered on the subject. The political controversy surrounding this subject in the United States didn't go away with the election of a new administration, and it remains a live topic in fringe politics in many other countries. The result of the bitter political battles is seen in the strength of feeling among editors who want to insert poorly supported material. Although by-and-large it is a well covered subject and the quality of the most important articles is high, it would be much better if the many specialists writing the articles could spend less time dealing with nonsense and more time adding content.

The arbitration committee's capacity to devolve power to uninvolved administrators has improved over the years, and an appropriate set of measures should be more than capable of coping with the contentious editing problems that have arisen in this area. I will not be submitting evidence in this case as my experience of the area is very recent. --TS 20:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I note the comments about the possibility of a full arbitration case, unless tightly defined in scope, becoming a bit of a drama fest. I would suggest that if this is the feeling of the Committee then an arbitrator might propose a special motion to introduce General sanctions to all articles related to global warming or climate change, broadly construed.

Statement by MastCell

  1. Please don't accept this case unless its scope is clearly defined at the outset.
  2. Please don't accept this case unless you are prepared, at the outset, to do something besides just apply discretionary sanctions.

It would probably be best to apply discretionary sanctions by motion and revisit this in a month or so. Discretionary sanctions are clearly warranted, and their existence might embolden admins to get a bit more involved (on the other hand, sometimes I think they're just a crutch for admins who lack the community confidence that normally undergirds administrative decisions, but hey...)

I'm really not enthused about a case here unless you're prepared to hand out a bunch of topic bans, or some clear guidelines for dealing with single-purpose agenda accounts and sockpuppetry on the topic. The worst-case scenario is an inconclusive 3-month-long, 40-party steel cage match that results in a remedy of discretionary sanctions. So if you accept the case, please consider some sort of proactive approach to avoid that outcome. And Happy New Year! :) MastCell Talk 22:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Abd

In response to a question from a non-editor regarding allegations that William M. Connolley had been abusing administrative privileges to maintain Global warming in a preferred state, an OTRS volunteer recently stated that WMC had lost those privileges over an unrelated matter. This was not correct. My original interactions with WMC were over Global warming and related behavior, and I had warned him about use of tools while involved, and ultimately presented some evidence relevant to this in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley. I was not claiming that he was involved with Cold fusion, he wasn't. He was involved with me, personally, over my questioning his use of tools at Global warming, as well as a few other matters. The history of Global warming shows long-term and biased administrative involvement, on the part of a number of administrators, some of whom did not personally edit the article, but who frequently intervened to protect it through blocks, and when a neutral administrator protected the article -- against these administrators! -- WMC, quite involved, lifted the protection and the administrator threw up her hands in despair.

That this case is being filed by an apparently neutral party is of interest as a new approach. As I understand the filing, no specific charges are being made about particular editors by naming them, they are asserted to be "involved," which is not reprehensible in itself. MastCell's suggestion to implement discretionary sanctions by motion might be a first step, but there has been long-term problematic behavior, for years. An injunction against those involved using administrative tools on the family of articles and other involved editors may also be in order. In reviewing the situation, certain names came up again and again, preferentially warning and blocking accounts on one side of disputes (and at one time this included regular checkuser based purely on apparent point of view of editors and without documentation and reports, but this situation has apparently been improved with the resignation of the checkuser in question), and for a clique of editors, maintaining the article in a preferred state, conveying certain impressions to readers, and disallowing reliably-sourced material that might appear to convey an opposite impression, seemed to take precedence over negotiating consensus. Tag-team reversion was the norm, most frequently bald reverts.

As to personal point of view on global warming, I'm probably far closer to the position of WMC, Stephen Schulz, Kim Dabelstein Petersen, and others whose names became very familiar as I reviewed the history of revert warring on the article, than I am to the position of skeptics. But this is an encyclopedia, and neutrality is a core policy, requiring negotiation consistent with sourcing and notability guidelines, and that, then, requires the protection of minority opinion against a majority with administrative privileges. I do believe that ArbComm should address this in some way.

As an example of long-term effect, I need only point at the Scibaby affair, which began with preferential use of tools against the original Scibaby account. Some editors, abused, do not go away quietly, and, then, massive range-blocks were used in a futile attempt to prevent Scibaby from socking, with massive collateral damage. There has to be a better way. --Abd (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 2over0

Much as I have lately been trying to encourage the major players here to pursue dispute resolution, I basically agree with Vassyana, below. There is currently no Climate change taskforce at Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment, which would be a good place to discuss the organizational issues that keep cropping up. I am not sure what more could be done here about the persistent socking and RL-inspired new editors; the disruption from long term tendentious advocates and SPAs should be amenable to normal topic-ban procedures where aggressive monitoring fails. The area also suffers from a dearth of active administrators; the regular editors here are basically a good bunch, but a little more oversight and prompt action could I think go a long way.

Also, while I think it was correct to include me in the above list, by my count I have protected Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident once and Scientific opinion on climate change once, and reopened SOoCC to normal editing after my lock following discussion on the talkpage. I have also issued a number of blocks in the area, mostly resulting from AN3 reports or per Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change#Locked.

If the case is accepted, however, perhaps the discretionary sanctions boilerplate could be applied as a preliminary injunction? I ask purely out of self interest and the expectation that their creation would be a probable remedy. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/1/0/3)

  • Comment: There are far too many parties, from what I can see. Could Tedder please (a) sort them out by whether they're included for administrator actions or editorial actions and (b) perhaps remove as parties anyone who has made fewer than 30 edits total in the last 3 months on the articles/talk pages involved, if they are not being included with respect to administrator actions? Thanks. Awaiting additional statements/comments. Risker (talk) 04:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting further statements and in general agreement with Risker's suggestions. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Leaning towards accepting when I become active, but I'd like to see a pared down list of parties in this case to only the core members involved, and further party statements. Like to see where people think we should be looking at (whole area, specific editors conduct, etcetera) SirFozzie (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept; provisionally. This is a difficult area that is nearing explosion and where ArbCom could help — but the committee will likely edit the list of parties savagely and tweak the scope if the case is accepted. — Coren (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse, once active. As much as I hate to miss out on our trial by fire, I've reverted non-vandalistic edits to An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle. Steve Smith (talk) 18:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. There is no doubt that a variety of factors are making the topic area a bit more of a battleground mess than usual for politically charged topic areas. However, I do not see that this is beyond the capability of the community to resolve. On the contrary, I see several indications that the problems that arise can be resolved by the community. Despite the flurry of disputes, new accounts, accusations, and so on cropping up lately, community processes and individual administrators seem to be handling the matter in an appropriate fashion. Arbitration is not necessary and is likely to serve as a massive dramafest. Vassyana (talk) 20:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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