Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Scientology/Proposed decision

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Sources - objection to wording

I have an objection to the current wording under the subsection Sources [1]. This overemphasizes academic sources, and this could cause problems in the future. Please see the problematic issues with this overemphasis, as laid out in my evidence in this case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Financial_conflict_of_interest_in_source_material.

Durova (talk · contribs) commented about this at the Workshop page for Prem Rawat 2 case: Actually, there are occasions where the role of scholarly sources might be overemphasized. Would you trust scientific research about the health effects of tobacco that was funded by tobacco companies? I'd be more interested in an investigative report on the tobacco industry's campaign financing practices, which no academic journal would be likely to cover but a good mainstream newspaper would publish. Not everything worth our attention occurs within the ivory tower.

John Nevard (talk · contribs) also made a pertinent comment: an article on the effects of smoking on heart disease in a journal from several decades ago by a research scientist dependent on funding from the tobacco industry may have questionable value. In the same way, a journal article by a specialized social scientist dependent on good relations with new religious movements might be more clouded by subconscious bias than a well researched feature by a journalist for a heavyweight paper who will be on another story next month. Cirt (talk) 23:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns raised here by Cirt. WP:NPOV requires that all significant viewpoints are covered, and as long as a source is considered reliable by our standards, there should be no problem with usage of a source--especially in cases where the information is readily verifiable by multiple reliable sources. It is dangerous to make generalizations here because situations vary from case to case, and the wording as it stands could be used to subvert the use of legitimate sources. Furthermore, there is a difference between using scholarly sources for a field such as physics or linear algebra, than doing so for social sciences or religious study, which tend to be less rigid. The trouble with such wording was discussed in another ongoing arbitration case: Jayen466 proposed (see "1") a principle for the Prem Rawat 2 arbitration case, citing a Cold Fusion principle as a precedent; Durova pointed out that the principle cited "may not be broadly applicable outside science disputes." ←Spidern→ 07:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a comment on this specific case, nor a response to the objections raised. However, it is relevant to note that a similar principle recent passed unanimously on the Ayn Rand case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ayn Rand#Neutral point of view. Vassyana (talk) 09:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked this a bit over a heading of "Quality of sources" and added the "Ayn Rand" principle to cover use of sources, as "Neutrality and sources". — Roger Davies ^talk 09:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The Ayn Rand principle you cite may not be appropriate in this case. We are talking about a field where (unlike cold fusion or Ayn Rand) the number of engaged academics is relatively small, and the subject of the debate (again unlike cold fusion or Ayn Rand) has made strenuous legal and financial efforts to influence what others say about it.

A case in point: Oxford University Press has just this month published a book called Scientology, a collection of essays by a number of scholars. The first essay is a condensed history of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology by J. Gordon Melton, a controversial sociologist who has been criticised for conflicts of interest such as acting as a consultant and expert witness for the groups about which he writes (including Scientology). His history of Scientology - which he falsely describes as the "generally agreed facts" - is riddled with the most basic factual errors. For instance, he says that Hubbard sank a Japanese submarine during World War II, a claim which Hubbard made but which is supported by no historians of the US or Japanese navies, and was specifically rejected by the US Navy itself, as well as Hubbard's unofficial biographers. Melton mentions none of the contradicting evidence and cites no sources for his claims. It's an atrocious piece of work and I'm frankly amazed that it got through OUP's editorial processes. The problem is that, under the principle you cite, Melton's work could be given a higher standing than most of the (better sourced) works which contradict him, even though Melton is the exact equivalent of the tobacco scientists mentioned by Cirt.

Your principle assumes that academic researchers work to a higher standard of objectiveness and factual accuracy than non-academic sources. The problem is that for this specific topic area, that is not always the case because of the degree to which the Church of Scientology has sought to guide academic opinion (see the quote that begins with "12" at [2]). There is no parallel to this effort in the Ayn Rand or cold fusion topic areas. Failing to recognise that will seriously undermine the integrity of articles in this entire topic area. Your principle also makes no effort to define what "the best and most reputable sources" are, and all I can see it achieving will be merely shifting the argument to what sources editors consider to meet those criteria - I can tell you straight off that there will be very polarised views on this point. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that ChrisO is one of several editors in this field who have disclosed that they are involved in what scholars term online propaganda efforts against Scientology outside Wikipedia, and/or who have linked to their own sites as sources. Jayen466 10:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How about responding to questions such as the one I've posed below, rather than attempting to slime people? I might add that the editor whose you're citing was banned for harrassment - I don't think it's an example you want to follow. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How about you both stop the ad hominem stuff? — Roger Davies ^talk 10:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately this isn't the first time that Jayen has made ad hominem arguments when his positions have been challenged. He did exactly the same thing a few weeks ago, without provocation, on Talk:Scientology - see [3]. I had hoped this arbitration would convince him to stop doing this but evidently it hasn't. I regard it as a bad-faith tactic - note Jayen's last line in the diff I've quoted, which reeks of bad faith. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• As I pointed out to Durova, similar principles were used in two Sai Baba cases. The idea that academic sources are relevant for natural sciences, but don't matter in the social sciences has been voiced before, and soundly rejected. As for the allegation of financially tainted scholarship, this is a matter for the academic establishment to decide, not for us to decide. Fringe groups in all kinds of areas have alleged that the entire scientific establishment is involved in a conspiracy to suppress the truth. That is all fine, but as long as the scholars concerned publish the field's standard reference works via such publishers as Oxford University Press, the Gale Group, Greenwood Publishing and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and their works are required reading in university courses throughout the English-speaking world, I consider any attempt to exclude such sources moot. Anyways, the whole conversation between Durova and myself is here. Jayen466 10:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• That's a strawman argument. The issue is not that all academic sources are "tainted", as you put it: it's that some academic sources may in some cases be of inferior quality to some non-academic sources. Go back to that specific example that I cited. Melton, the academic source, says Hubbard sank a Japanese submarine. (He gives no citations for that claim). No naval historian supports the claim. The US Navy has specifically rejected the claim. Two non-academic sources, Miller and Atack, also specifically reject it and give numerous citations for their argument. Which source would you cite as authoritative and why? -- ChrisO (talk) 10:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have not the slightest doubt that some peer-reviewed sources are way better than others and that some authors of some peer-reviewed publications are considerably more partisan than others. However, that is not unique to Scientology and they can only be evaluated on a publication by publication basis. I note what you say about polarisation but this topic is already abundantly polarised and it's the polarisation that makes agreement so difficult not deficiencies in policy. The key thought here is that Wikipedia is about verifiability not truth (whatever "truth" is) and that it is not the job of ArbCom to trash academic reputations: that trashing can be done perfectly well by other academics writing in other peer-reviewed sources. Sorry, but I don't see a magic bullet here for this other than getting the editors to step back a bit. — Roger Davies ^talk 10:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• Again, though, that's begging the question. You're assuming that peer-reviewed sources (and I don't actually know if the work I'm citing has been peer-reviewed) are better than non-peer-reviewed sources. That may be true generally across the full range of all peer-reviewed sources on all subjects, but it isn't automatically true in this particular field, not least because the number of sources is actually quite limited. In the case of the example I quote, you have a possibly peer-reviewed source which lacks citations and asserts facts in opposition to several non-peer-reviewed mainstream sources which do provide citations for their arguments. So what do we do? Do we just roll over and say "even if we know this is a fringe view with no support from any other sources, it's an academic source so must be included"? There has to be some commitment to basic factual accuracy, surely? -- ChrisO (talk) 10:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You suggest that it is "not the job of ArbCom to trash academic reputations"; please note that nobody is suggesting that you do any such thing. I believe that both academic and other sources can be sufficiently represented in accordance with WP:NPOV. However, giving preference to one over the other has the unintended potential side effect of discouraging the use of otherwise reliable sources, which are abundantly verifiable. For example, on the talk page of Osho, Cirt pointed out that 28 sources described the deportation of Osho. Jayen466 still objected to the word usage of "deportation", and insisted that "more reliable" sources be used in their stead. Ideally, both viewpoints could be represented in a neutral way if in-text attribution of a claim is present. If a source is already deemed reliable by policy, what is the point of precluding or limiting the use of them in favor of views which are held by a handful of scholars? ←Spidern→ 12:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) This discussion rather highlights the problems with the whole sorry mess. The point is not to use sources, especially for BLP articles, to make the good guys look good, and the bad guys really evil, but to create balanced articles created from the best information available. — Roger Davies ^talk 21:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The above scenario may be interpreted as more of a NPOV issue, but the point is that the quantity of sources reporting something is a significant consideration. From what I understand the "best" information is that which is most easily verifiable, since truth is an absolute and can be subjective. It is apparent that the more reliable sources there are reporting a fact, the stronger the possibility that the information is reliable. ←Spidern→ 22:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a thought but there's also the school that believes that if absolutely impecccable sources don't exuist for something, it shouldn't be written about. Wearing my ordinary joe hat, I suppose part of the problem may be that many of the things being written are too recent to have a sensible range of good sources. Good analysis nearly always comes with time. — Roger Davies ^talk 22:14, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

(I am recused and these are just the comments of an individual editor.) The arguments against the principles honestly sound like an argument that Wikipedia should be in the business of compensating for the failings of real-world coverage. We aren't and doing so runs counter to several basic principles of Wikipedia. At the root of it, this is the same basic argument that we have encountered from fringe theory pushers and others, which we have consistantly rejected.

The tobacco parallel is a strawman in my mind (in the strict sense, not the internet sense). The problems of industry funded research, biased sources, and so on are extremely well-documented regarding tobacco. Furthermore, the overwheming majority of sources support the mainstream claims regarding tobacco risks. The tobacco industry funded research and propaganda is not minimized because of some exception to our various sourcing rules. It is treated with less weight and credence because of those rules. The proposed decision principles in question reinforce that treatment, if applied to that area. The principles simply reiterate basic content principles that apply across the board.

There will always be arguments that it is inappropriate or unfair to certain topic areas. However, those are arguments that come down to the failings of real-world coverage. The solution is to produce or encourage the production of real-world sources that fill that gap. It is not Wikipedia's place to make the correction. --Vassyana (talk) 02:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not Wikipedia's place to "correct" any source with allegedly false information. It is often said that Wikipedia is not an outlet for truth, but verifiability. All we can do is summarize that which is reliable (based on the publisher, not the content) and verifiable. By ensuring verifiability, we set our standards sufficiently high enough to state that the information is probably correct. The argument here is not to eliminate the use of academic sources, but to ensure that they do not supersede rigorous investigative journalism. Both types of sources can represent significant views, and neither should be entirely excluded from representation within the confines of neutrality. ←Spidern→ 02:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

When selecting an analogy that people recognize, there's always the risk that its shortcomings will come under criticism. No analogy is perfect. A year of mentoring in this area has raised my concerns that a POV agenda might be overriding ordinary Wikipedia policy standards in this topic. The first instance that stood out was an occasion where certain editors tried to disallow the editor-in-chief of the Village Voice as a source, in an instance where that journalist was writing within his expertise--by trying to deprecate his publication as a tabloid. Well of course the Village Voice publishes in tabloid format in the formal sense of the word, but it's also a Pulitzer-winning newspaper and widely used at Wikipedia as a reliable source. When that argument got rebutted others followed, and I came away with the distinct impression that this wasn't normal editorial policy discussion at all but a series of objections against the source's POV. As an isolated instance that doesn't count for much, of course, but as months progressed Cirt would come to me about various article talk discussions where he had what appeared to be a credible argument, but existing precedents were being cited by other parties in a manner that made it very difficult to raise the pertinent objection. Of course there were also times when Cirt's evidence and arguments weren't as strong as he first supposed, but those instances were much easier to address because we usually discussed them in advance and he was open to feedback and adjustment. Your objections are well taken, Vassyana, and I've occasionally wondered whether my observations are sufficiently critical because I never had much grounding (or interest) in the topic of new religious movements except as it relates to this site's dispute resolution. Bear with me, please.

Examining the evidence in the Prem Rawat and Scientology cases, in particular instances where Momento removed mainstream reliable newspapers from an article with the rationale that they weren't scholarly, and an instance where Justallofthem recently equated USA Today with tabloids, I began to wonder whether source discussions had been framed on quite the best neutral terms. If quality investigative journalism usually sheds a negative light on a topic, and if an editor's aim is to promote some organization within that topic, then wouldn't it serve that editor's POV at the expense of the encyclopedia to deprecate journalism? Note Jossi's aggressive interest in Cirt's featured drive for the journalism portal and the stream of negative quotes about journalism that Jossi supplied there.

Supposing for a moment that I were a POV pusher, and clever about it, it would be necessary to play up some alternative type of source more suitable to my priorities. If a portion of the scholarly material were compromised by a financial conflict of interest then I would first assert the primacy of formal scholarship and then utilize the portion of it that suited my needs, all the while endeavoring to make it as difficult as possible to raise any objection to the pertinent COI. Maybe, as Vassyana suggests, some of that COI is insufficiently documented to challenge within site policy framework. Our conflict of interest guideline itself is framed around editor COI, not source COI, and perhaps it is not too cynical to note how Jossi was heavily involved in shaping that guideline. Jossi's own disclosures followed the guideline's letter while subverting its intent. My evidence also shows that Jossi was editing the guide to requests for adminship and the sockpuppetry policy in ways that would have made it harder for Cirt to gain adminship at the same time as Jossi expressed a very keen interest in preventing Cirt from ever becoming an administrator. Jossi was an active editor of other policies and was skilled at framing discussions in terms that looked palatable to uninvolved observers.

It may be beyond the Committee's remit if Jossi's efforts have successfully influenced WP:RS, etc. on relevant issues. Yet I urge the Committee to take a critical view of Jayen466's keen interest in implementing the Sathya Sai Baba arbitration language about sourcing priorities here and at Prem Rawat. Privately I have been expressing concerns these last few days that an omnibus arbitration about new religious movements may need to follow later this year. If you take Jayen's advice, let's all hope my concerns are mistaken. Durova^Charge! 03:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Spidern and Durova. I now better understand where you are coming from. As a general rule, news media has a downright terrible reputation when it comes to covering academic topics. For example, it is relatively common to see science-focused Wikipedians (especially in the medicine topic area) push back hard against heavy reliance on journalistic sources for this reason. Religious studies and archaeology reporting are almost as infamously poor as the hard science coverage.

On a counterpoint, plenty of journalistic sources have very strong reputations. A great example is the New York Times, winner of more Pulitzers than any other newspaper. Short of an Jason Blair-like debacle, it's downright absurd to argue it is unreliable. For the record, I consider the Village Voice and USA Today to be towards this end of the reliability spectrum.

One should also bear in mind that many aspects of religion in modern life are quite aptly documented by news coverage. Unless particularly interesting from an academic view, the building of a particular Catholic cathedral (as a tame example) is almost assuredly going to have most of its reliable source coverage in news media. This type of reporting generally falls within the norms of common reputable news coverage.

Essentially, news media is not very reliable by general reputation when it comes to issues like theology, archaeology and church history. However, highly reputable news media is still highly reputable and should not be discounted, even if most news coverage of the topic area is viewed as unreliable. Additionally, general and common social reporting reporting do not suffer from this negative reputation.

It is also worth nothing that while academic sources are usually the most reliable, that does not make other sources unreliable. While we can paint some broad trends, appropriate sourcing needs to be considered with the whole of our content principles in mind, on a case by case basis. I think the reliable source guideline makes a closely related point well: "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process." [empahsis in original]

That all said, the issue that troubles you seems to be more of a behavioral concern than one about the actual substance of the principles proposed. That is, the concerns seem to be about a perceived abandonment of the spirit of the rules for the letter thereof, and the related concern of misappropriating the rules.

tl:dr version. Newspapers have horrible coverage of scholarly topics, including religious studies. Much religion-related news coverage, such as social and lifestyles reporting, is general reliable. Reliability and proper sourcing depends on context, requiring a bit of common sense and discretion. The main concern seems behavioral, rather than an actual objection to the principles. --Vassyana (talk) 09:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Church of Scientology

This finding of fact is extremely appropriate and warranted. I note that a version of this was already adopted by the Arbitration Committee in the COFS case, namely Conflict of interest, Responsibility of organizations, Multiple editors with a single voice, and most specifically, Use of Church of Scientology-owned IPs.

I question this comment [4] by Cool Hand Luke (talk · contribs) - and ask upon what evidence Cool Hand Luke is basing this on. For one, I am not a contributor to the Operation Clambake website. Cirt (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Editors using Church of Scientology equipment are focused on Scientology-related articles, [5] and frequently engage in sockpuppetry to avoid sanctions [6], [7]. The Church of Scientology's influence on articles relating to it on Wikipedia has been widely reported internationally by the media since 2005, damaging Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality (examples: The Guardian, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Der Spiegel, The Independent, Forbes and Reuters).

---

It should also be noted that this is simply a Finding of fact - and that everything stated in this above text is factual, accurate, and backed up by evidence. Cirt (talk) 15:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're a top-notch editor in this area, and I think that many other editors in this case should be given significant sanctions.

I will not impute an irrevocable COI to everyone who has ever edited from a COFS IP address, just as I will not do so for everyone who has ever contributed to Project Clambake. The COI guideline doesn't work that way. I would support a different finding but not one that's setting the stage for an unprecedented IP range topic ban that will permanently subject every pro-Scientology editor to checkuser. Cool Hand Luke 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

@Cool Hand Luke - do you dispute the factual accuracy of any part of this Finding of fact ? Cirt (talk) 15:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Findings of fact also must be relevant. Do you dispute the factual accuracy of my statement—that many Wikipedia users and admins are prolific anti-COFS contributors off-site? Neither of these sweeping statements would be included in a proposed decision unless they were operative, and at this time I oppose both and note the apparent bias of the finding.

This finding would not be relevant to the case unless sanctions against the church's IP ranges are proposed. As it turns out, Roger has proposed such sanctions, and I strongly oppose them as well. I would support a finding of fact that users X, Y, and Z have edited from these ranges (and that doing so, in conjunction with using an SPA and POV editing shows the hazards of apparent COI editing). But this finding of fact has no place in the case, and neither does the upcoming remedy.

Tip to editors who have ever used a COFS range: think of something clever to say about this case, because they might be your last words on Wikipedia. Cool Hand Luke 16:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• The FoF is only one-sided to the extent that I have been unable to find correspondingly clearcut evidence for any other identifiable faction. I am unable to say whether this is because they don't exist or because they are better at covering their tracks. I would love to do and would embrace enthusiastically a corresponding FoF for Operation Clamback or whatever. I invite editors to submit evidence (ie diffs and CU data) for consideration.
• It has long been policy that two wrongs don't make a right. Tit-for-tat/retaliatory action has never been sanctioned on Wikipedia.
• I am not the least partisan in this and I would like very much to do a clean sweep of all aligned editors as I believe this is the only way to restore order to this topic, after years of problems.
• I am not sure what other options are realistically open to us to deal with a succession of throwaway sockpuppets and single purpose accounts. Banning them just appears to lead to another utterly disposable account, discarded on discovery. I don't think that CUing everyone who has an apparently pro-Scientology perspective is the answer but there's a strong argument for doing so if they meet several criteria. In this context though, if editors are behaving neutrality, it should be impossible to determine whether they are pro- or anti- the subject matter. — Roger Davies ^talk 17:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately a lot of what you are saying is assertion not backed up by evidence, as opposed to this Finding of fact, which is. It is also inappropriate to address a Finding of fact in this manner as if one were talking about a sanction. Cirt (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm in a better position than you to know what remedies have and have not been proposed. Simply, this finding of fact exists to support a sanction that should not be passed. It is irrelevant to the case because the sanction should not be passed. Cool Hand Luke 18:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Logging in this morning is quite a surprise. It really is imperative to protest against this assertion by Cool Hand Luke. The assertion about Operation Clambake is entirely unsupported by onsite case evidence. Has there been offsite evidence to that effect?

I have never participated in Operation Clambake, nor in Anonymous, nor in any organized protest of any sort against any religion. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has Cirt either. If any participant to this arbitration does such things I am unaware of it. Rather, some of us take pride in opposing prejudice of any stripe, as here. For two years now I have endeavored to stabilize this topic by demonstrating that Wikipedia is not a battleground between Scientologists and those who are bigoted against them. When anti-Scientology users come to troll the Scientologists, Cirt takes that to ANI and requests checkuser to expose the anti-Scientology socks. What more can we do to demonstrate that policy, not ideology, guides our actions?

Cool Hand Luke's 'Operation Clambake' post is weighty accusation for an arbitrator to make, particularly in a formal opinion at a proposed case decision, and it has every appearance of being both polarizing and entirely unwarranted. It comes very close to a formal accusation of religious bigotry; it is worded in such broad terms that it could apply to nearly anyone who submitted evidence critical of one set of parties. And if that is not the intention, it would unfortunately be quite easy to quote out of context as if that were its meaning. I entreat you, do consider a refactor. Durova^Charge! 18:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not accusing any individuals here.

My issue is that WP:COI violations must be shown by the behavior, not alleged identity. There's a lot of sanctionable behavior in this case, and we should sanction it. This focus on IP address rather than actual behavior threatens to treat Scientologists as a uniquely unwelcome class of contributors—worse than terrorists, worse than pedophiles. If we proceed to ban one side of this war for IP-based "COI" while ignoring counter-cultists and prolific anti-Scientologists on the other side, I would consider that religious bigotry.

My proposal is to simply focus on the behavior. I believe any other approach cannot be supported by our policies, and will strongly protest any other approach.

Cirt is a top-notch editor. I've said so above. I'll remove the comment. Cool Hand Luke 18:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there has been a lot of misconduct by editors from the COFS. In fact, I agreed with the proposals blaming the church itself. That misconduct may or may not be endemic to the organization itself. Certainly, given its prior history, some individuals might be inclined to think that the Church itself is responsible for that misconduct, and, yes, I'm one of those individuals. But I do think that the recent variations, focusing more on the misconduct itself rather than the IPs from which the misconduct is coming, is probably the preferable option, as it doesn't seem to specifically fault the organization itself. If, of course, reliable convincing evidence of such misconduct ever appears, I would once again support blocking/banning those IPs, but it might be a bit early to set such a precedent only on the evidence we currently have available. John Carter (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For the record, in the light of Jayen's smear attempts, I haven't directly contributed to Operation Clambake either. Operation Clambake has republished things I have written elsewhere (it's principally an aggregation site) but that was certainly not at my request or initiative, any more than for the dozens of other authors, journalists and researchers whose work has been republished by OC. But that's a side issue, since editors have been conscientious in not using personally published sources (Cirt's work on sourcing has been especially praiseworthy). The root issue with Church of Scientology IP addresses is the one that I tackled in the workshop: "The use of shared corporate IP addresses to edit articles obscures the identity of individual editors, making it difficult to determine whether multiple accounts operating from the same corporate IP address are genuinely different people." We know for a fact that there has been improper editing from CoS IP addresses, and we know that some pro-Scientology editors have been editing from similar or the same addresses, but what we don't know - because of the obscuring nature of shared IP addresses - is whether this editing is being carried out by the same people, or by a group of people in coordination, or genuinely separate individuals. Plus there is an obvious conflict of interest in editors using corporate IP addresses to edit articles about their corporate entity. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I would support a finding treating those addresses as an open proxy. We could block them, and individual editors could ask permission to edit through the blocks. There's lots of ways we could set something like that up. Cool Hand Luke 19:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for a very good practical solution. I've been wondering how we might deal with this in practice. — Roger Davies ^talk 19:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Luke, please bear the following principle in mind:

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS#Responsibility_of_organizations

Editors who access Wikipedia through an organization's IP address and who edit Wikipedia articles which relate to that organization have a presumptive conflict of interest. Regardless of these editors' specific relationship to that organization or function within it, the organization itself bears a responsibility for appropriate use of its servers and equipment. If an organization fails to manage that responsibility, Wikipedia may address persistent violations of fundamental site policies through blocks or bans.

That passed 10 to 0 at 03:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC), but I proposed its original incarnation more than two months before.

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS/Workshop#WP:COI

Editors who access Wikipedia through an organization's IP address and who edit Wikipedia articles which relate to that organization have a presumptive conflict of interest. Regardless of these editors' specific relationship to that organization or function within it, the organization itself bears a responsibility for appropriate use of its servers and equipment. If an organization fails to manage that responsibility, Wikipedia may address persistent violations of fundamental site policies through blocks or bans.

Proposed. This seems flexible enough to cover decentralized corporations, universities, etc. without undue burden on editors who act in good faith. DurovaCharge! 08:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

When Misou challenged it I elaborated.

Suppose a United Way volunteer wants wants to edit about the United Way: if that person edited from COI offices the onsite behavior reflects on the organization. So if the person gets sitebanned for persistent WP:NPA violations it creates a public relations risk for the organization. The organization isn't responsible for actions of a volunteer who acts from home. An employee who edits from home still has a conflict of interest because of the person's financial and career interest in United Way's success. The practicalities of determing [sic] these situations are a different matter; this proposal is about principle. DurovaCharge! 06:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

And followed up.

It has a very real reflection in real life. See Congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia. DurovaCharge! 05:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What I did not know in July 2007 was that a graduate student named Virgil Griffith at Caltech was preparing to release the WikiScanner. It came out on August 17, 2007 and promptly caused precisely the public relations disaster that I had been endeavoring to thwart. This situation is indisputably a conflict of interest. If the organization in question were the United Way or the United States Congress then the dilemma would be fundamentally the same. None of the parties here, nor the Committee itself, has the power to argue away a conflict of interest of newsworthy proportions.

Several surprising contradictions arise from that. Scientology is a new religion with an image problem: why would it risk bad pubilicity this way? Why would it allow its own hardware and Internet connections to be used in perpetuating that risk, even afterward? Why would its members boast of this at RFAR? We agree that people do exist in the world who wish ill upon Scientology: does it not serve the aims of those religious bigots to perpetuate the obvious conflict of interest and risk another round of negative press for this church? And if we cared nothing about the Church of Scientology, why risk Wikipedia's reputation--it can't look good for the site if these years of arbitration cases failed to implement any effective solution.

I don't know what the proper solution is for this problem, but certain things obviously don't work. We can't pretend that sleight of word will change the minds of either the press or the public about what doesn't look proper. Durova^Charge! 19:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom does not exist to give the Church of Scientology publicity advice. We're here to enforce our policies. The COI guideline does not and cannot support topic bans for everyone editing from particular IP addresses, and it does not compel us to actively check users from institutional use, and it most certainly does not require us to single out editors from a particular institution for uniquely onerous treatment. Cool Hand Luke 19:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No one suggests that ArbCom is here to give publicity advice. It does bear repeating that this is--in real world terms--a bigger case than usual. That reflects on Wikipedia too. Given a prior unanimous finding on the subject of COI that applied directly to this dispute, we need not reinvent the wheel at the very next case when the very same problem persists, as confirmed by both checkuser and the admissions of the editors themselves. Durova^Charge! 20:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've not said anything inconsistent with that. It's a good caution to such organizations, and I would support a similar finding here. The issue is that blocks and bans must be issued based on out fundamental site policy—which COI is not. It's interesting and helpful to note a user's presumptive COI, but that alone is not grounds for block. COI editors can and do sometimes edit consistently with our policies.

In any event, the focus of this case should be on behavior, not purported identity. Cool Hand Luke 20:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No one supposes that mere conflict of interest itself is blockable, but violation of policies is generally regarded as more serious when it occurs in conjunction with a conflict of interest. Wikipedians are reluctant to block entire schools, companies, etc. for extended lengths of time, but we have been known to do so when the organization's management habitually fails to exercise due control over the misuse of their Internet connections. Your statements confuse me, though: it appears almost as if you posit COI as a mitigating factor rather than an exacerbating factor. Surely we can respond to COI that originates from a religious organization the same as any other COI: it isn't an aspersion against a faith itself to declare that (for whatever reasons), their organizational structure has been ineffective at preventing a substantial COI and substantial associated policy violations, so therefore Wikipedia may intervene with actual remedies. Bear in mind: I haven't supported any of the proposed workshop remedies about banning the Church of Scientology. Yet when cautions fail--as they obviously have here--what would you do? Durova^Charge! 21:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am unaware of any organization that has been blocked for COI. Typically, these blocks occur when the organization is piping many users through a few addresses, making it into a de facto open proxy. Insofar that we're concerned about socks here, that's an appropriate way to treat these IP addresses.

We should simply restrict editors who do not follow our policies. We have the case because large POV disputes necessarily cannot be resolved by community consensus. In that respect, this case is not much different from many of our other intractable ethnic/nationalism edit wars. I think blocking users who have used a COFS IP address is not entirely different from, say, blocking users who have used a Serbian IP address. There's very little reason to suppose that the COFS takes responsibility for all of its users, and there's no evidence that we've made any attempt to resolve it through them (which usually occurs with other institutional range blocks). I cannot understand how they've been ineffective at enforcing our policies—do they even know that we want them to? I think it would be foolish to impose sanctions against a non=party organization on these facts, besides exceeding our actual policy mandates.

So it's the same solution we have for every other broad edit war: block the problem users for their specific behavior, which sends a signal that users should be blocked for such behavior. Cool Hand Luke 21:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerns on wording of neutrality principle

I am again troubled by the wording of a proposed principle, in this case one describing neutrality. "Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view." The current text has it backwards. Instead of judging viewpoints based on the polarization of sources, the criterion for inclusion should be whether the viewpoint is significant, verifiable, and reliably-sourced. While I agree that there is more to a quality article than simply adding opposing viewpoints, neutrality is sufficiently described by the community-drafted standing policy and no further elaboration is needed. ←Spidern→ 17:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly a point of view: let's see what the arbitrators make of it, shall we? — Roger Davies ^talk 17:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

What I expressed here is simply my interpretation of existing policy. ←Spidern→ 20:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarify BLP issue please?

I may have missed something in the din of the workshop pages, but item 3.2 says "Editing of several articles concerning individuals associated with Scientology and/or with opposition to Scientology has violated aspects of our policy governing biographies of living persons". Which articles and edits? Can someone point me towards the evidence on this point? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Rick Ross' evidence section shows a lot of troubling editing. There are other one-off examples scattered in the evidence. BLPs are often casualties in POV wars. Cool Hand Luke 19:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Jossi evidence

For the record, I submitted evidence privately to the ArbCom on February 20 regarding the past abuse of socks by Jossi. I haven't received any substantive response from the committee regarding that evidence, and am not sure if it is being considered as a part of this or another case. I think the proposed remedy that Jossi resigned his adminship during a controversy is correct. My concern is that a user with a declared conflict of interest may return with a new account which would have the same but undeclared conflict of interest. Is this the appropriate case to propose that Jossi be limited to one acount?   Will Beback  talk  20:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

History lesson or cabal versus cabal

I see some discussion above of the history of the Scientology articles and who wrote what. As Justanother (talk · contribs), I ignorantly stumbled into that minefield almost three years ago so I have some of the middle history to share.

I started editing to correct a misrepresentation about "silent birth" as that subject was getting some play due to TomKat's pregnancy and I had happened upon the Wiki article and found it a bizarre representation of Scientology practice. At that time the Scientology articles were controlled by a small group of dedicated critics of Scientology, some of whom are/were admins, and many of whom were known in the critic circle for off-site criticism of Scientology, including maintaining critical sites, statements to press, and/or frequent contributors at alt.religion.scientology. These included Modemac (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Glen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Tilman (talk · contribs), Vivaldi (talk · contribs), AndroidCat (talk · contribs), and Fahrenheit451 (talk · contribs). The IRL identities of all of those are known to me as I am familiar with both their on-wiki and off-wiki activity. It is not my intention to out anyone here. If an arbitrator thinks their identity is relevant then e-mail me and I will provide privately. These were joined by other critical editors such as Antaeus Feldspar (talk · contribs) and Wikipediatrix (talk · contribs).

By control the articles, I mean maintain them is a condition that was a one-sided criticism of Scientology bordering on caricature. These editors presented themselves as "consensus" and normally carried the day on any content dispute. They had succeeded in running off every pro-Scientology editor prior to me that stuck his nose in their domain. Sorry, if I sound harsh but they put me through hell (not that I am complaining - I could have left, too). Further, the Scientology articles were such a battleground and so unpleasant to edit that neutral editors tended to steer them a large berth leaving the critics free rein. For some proof, here is noted Scientology critic, David S. Touretzky, congratulating the crew on a job well done.

It is a little vanity of mine that perhaps I was of some help in breaking their hold on the articles and making the environment more suitable for neutral players by being the one Scientologist that stood his ground and and would not be railroaded. Not that they did not come close a few times.

As I said, this is the middle history. The early history can be told by others but basically the critics of Scientology were here fastest with the mostest when Wikipedia was starting up and many became admins and above. The articles were written by critics.

Back later with more. For now, my old user page may be of interest. --Justallofthem (talk) 00:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that Justallofthem's offer to provide private back-channel information, where no one mentioned can examine it for truth and accuracy or rebut, is highly improper. (I have nothing to hide, and it could be just a simple listing of net-places and identities, but from previous experience, I'd expect example articles cherry-picked from years of posting, removed from their context and with new text "explaining" it all.) If any arbitrators received one of these, could you please 'fess up? AndroidCat (talk) 01:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This is the sort of paranoid, insulting, and bad-faith comment that I have come to expect from Scientology critics. I invite neutral parties to reread what I wrote above - "If an arbitrator thinks their identity is relevant then e-mail me and I will provide privately" - in the context in which it was written and please disregard AndroidCat's attempt to smear me. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You offered to provide private back-channel "information". To avoid accusation of wiki-netstalking, you haven't posted it here, just implied that there is something and that people should wander out back so that you can whisper in their ear. Methinks you protest too much. I bite my thumb. AndroidCat (talk) 06:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

To restate the obvious: Part of this arbitration is about people with known and vested POVs editing Wikipedia to forward those POVs. That includes the small group of "established" off-wiki critics of Scientology and members of Chanology as much as it includes Scientologists editing from known Church IPs. I listed a number of editors here as being part of the first group, yourself included. I did not offer any proof because I did not want to out anyone. I said that I would name them privately to any arbitrator that asks. Just name them. Nothing more. End of story. I have stated time and again that I have no objection to criticism of Scientology; I do object to this project being trashed to promote a one-sided view of Scientology. --Justallofthem (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Nope. Got several from other parties though. Cool Hand Luke 23:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh? Private? I hope you'll enlighten everyone by making those private back-channel communications public by posting them here. Either that, or I suggest you recluse yourself from this arbitration. AndroidCat (talk) 05:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

If an arbitrator had to recuse everytime a private email came in, we'd have no arbitrators for any case. People email privately all the time, usually to press the parts of the case they think important. This isn't usually effective and often irritates more than anything. However, we have to leave this option open because some things (risk of repercussions, harassment, outing etc) have to dealt with confidentially.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Rick Ross BLP

Please note that I have submitted additional evidence on the history of the Rick Ross BLP and the various noticeboards at which the article was discussed. Jayen466 15:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright. I'll look into your evidence carefully later tonight. Looked problematic from the evidence previously posted, but maybe that didn't show the whole context. Cool Hand Luke 17:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I was just looking at it. The problem with this kind of proceeding (this arbitration) is that it is time-consuming and tiresome to prove and clearly lay out trends so I don't bother. I'll clarify this: what struck me looking at your edits was the way you chipped away at content instead of blasting away, and you ended up successfully changing the entire slant, and this usually reflected what I assume is your POV. The secret to good article writing is that the reader should not be able to detect the allegiances of the writer, and looking at your changes as a whole, I was easily able to. — Roger Davies ^talk 22:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Found it. The difference in your editorial treatment of Alan Ross and Thomas W. Davis is a good example of this. — Roger Davies ^talk 22:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Roger, in Ross's case, I simply began by searching google books, and reported what reliably published, scholarly sources said about Ross. I invite you to perform the same searches in google books and see if what you find in high-quality, reputable sources is any different from what I found.

Also please look at the content I chipped away. This was the article status before I started. Do you think it was a good article as it stood, well sourced, and well referenced, and reflecting significant viewpoints in accordance with their prevalence in reliable sources? Jayen466 09:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

To be specific, and lest I be accused of only ever deleting badly sourced criticism of spiritual teachers and Scientologists: I deleted the following parts of the criticism section in Ross's article:

• deleted reference and link to Scientology attack site and self-published rebuttal as per WP:SELFPUB;
• deleted poorly sourced (self-published academic website) report of alleged mental problems – that is the last time these allegations appeared in this article – even though there are top sources, including United States Congress records, referring to Ross's psychiatric record: [8], I considered inclusion of this information incompatible with the spirit of WP:BLP;
• deleted reference to Ross's own attack site (WP:SELFPUB making unduly self-serving statements about third parties).

Eventually, I deleted the entire criticism section, including Shupe's characterization of Ross's site as an "entrepreneurial 'lone ranger' attempt to solicit customers".

As for arguably positive material, I –

• added that Ross became vice-president of a company;
• added that Ross's work was covered in an edition of the "48 hours" TV program;
• added info on the theoretical underpinnings of Ross's work, based on an article in The Observer – oddly enough, Ross objected to that paragraph, even though he references Lifton multiple times on his own website, e.g. here, but I followed his wish and later removed this reliably sourced assertion;
• added that he was hired as an analyst by CBS. Jayen466 15:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that I also deleted the "some parents are so cheap they prefer to let their kids 'bang the bible' than pay" quote [9], also present in the article before I started, even though there are several reputably published sources mentioning this quite well-known quote.

I trust this shows that I did not make this BLP as negative as I could make it to suit a particular POV. Given the reliable sources available, there was much more embarrassing detail that I could have included, such as the psychiatric record and this bang the Bible quote. It was not my intent to create an attack page, but an article that would pass muster at GA, while giving due consideration to the important civil rights issues involved. Jayen466 15:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

In Davis' case, the article prior to my editing said that "Davis located Sweeney's Clearwater, Florida hotel and waited in the lobby for Sweeney's arrival. In the documentary, Sweeney described the incident as being "creepy".[15]"

The cited source was this, and the only use of the word "creepy" in it is this: "I told him that Scientology had been spying on the BBC and that was creepy." The source simply does not say that Sweeney found the incident of Davis waiting for him in the hotel "creepy". Sweeney said he felt the BBC had been watched, and that that was creepy.

The article prior to my edits also contained the following sentence: "Davis walked away from Sweeney, offended by the journalist's statement that some may consider the Church of Scientology a "sinister cult", causing Davis to become "Angry, real angry".[17]"

Again, the phrase "Angry, real angry", marked as a quote, was not in the cited source. It sounded like a gloating comment to me, of the type sometimes inserted by vandals, and given that it was unsourced, I removed it.

Apart from that, I did not change the sourcing of the article. I corrected the apparent discrepancies between article text and cited sources, and added material available in the sources already cited. [10] I stand by those edits. I invite you to check them and their agreement with the sources cited. Jayen466 10:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Justallofthem and AFD

Regarding Cool Hand Luke's objection, please review the following passage from my evidence. Justanother attempted to discount the participation of uninvolved experienced editors from deletion discussion. Following are the complaints of three of them. Durova^Charge! 15:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• 6 June 2008: John Carmichael (Scientologist)—After new editors created the article Cirt began work on it to expand and add sources.[11] Justallofthem appears less than 10 hours later to nominate the article for deletion.[12] During the AFD, Justallofthem attempts to invalidate the input of editors that clearly have varied contribution histories by tagging their AFD posts as if they were SPAs. Several of them complain:

That is a pure lie, check my contributions. In fact I haven't done a single edit to any scientology-related page, if you don't count the dianetics talk page. – User:Nxty[13]

I agree with Cirt, you have been very hasty in tagging some of the users here as SPAs. It might also be worth the closing admin noting that Justallofthem appears to be quite heavily involved in Scientology related articles with a possible POV towards removing/playing down controversy. ChaoticReality 22:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[14]

With a couple of thousand edits total over several years, it feels odd to have my opinion devalued simply because I've had a busy spring; I have in fact been participating steadily, albeit on a very small scale, since having to scale back at the start of 2008...Robertissimo (talk) 11:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[15]

• I noted that a large number of the keeps were from dormant or new editors, found that suspicious, and marked them accordingly. The username of the original creator is indicative of Anonymous and anonymous' hallmark is off-wiki coordination of attacks or "harpoons". Watching for and preventing abuse of BLP by anonymous is something that I am alert to and I acted accordingly in that instance. I notice that Durova presents only one-sided evidence, she is clearly acting in a partisan fashion. In this specific instance she omitted mentioning the tags I made that were not questionable. Durova's evidence must always be taken with a grain of salt as being incomplete and skewed. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

If any of these three experienced editors were part of Anonymous, why didn't they participate in any of the dispute resolution about Scientology? Members of Anonymous do not lurk behind every corner; the few who appear are pretty obvious. Note Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Richard_Rolles which Cirt first requested, and where Justallofthem later followed up with additional requests; also this ANI thread which Justallofthem started and which both Cirt and I supported. The Anonymous side of the problem has been handled through normal channels. It isn't partisanship to address both sides of the Scientology disputes problem. New arbitrators who didn't observe my impartial mentorship of Privatemusings and Jaakobou have the recent example of ScienceApologist. It is unfortunate that Justanother does not reconsider the overly aggressive position he took at the AFD cited above. Durova^Charge! 16:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, seems over-aggressive, but I also understand why user might have suspected canvassing, especially given the origin of the article. It seems they were more upset with a WP:DNTTR violation than anything else—I don't think this is abuse of AfD. Cool Hand Luke 16:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

"serially breached policy to advance his/her point of view"

No evidence of inappropriate article space edits has been presented to support this. Just sayin'. Carry on. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:14, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Justallofthem's alleged sockpuppetry

As for Justallofthem's alleged sockpuppetry, I will happily eat my hat if Justallofthem posted as Truthtell, and here is why. Jayen466 17:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

 Confirmed at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Justanother by checkuser YellowMonkey (talk · contribs), this was also confirmed by a second checkuser, Nishkid64 (talk · contribs): I confirm the findings.. Noted this accordingly at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Justanother. Cirt (talk) 18:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, get your own topic. That has nothing to do with this. Wait a minute, are you in my topic trying to bait me with this? Shame on you! --Justallofthem (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, Cirt, it just does not make sense. Not the timing of the edits, not the kinds of edits they were, nor the total lack of stylometric agreement traceable over a concurrent history of several years. Jayen466 18:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Nishkid64 has already said what the evidence is: same ISP in the same city. There's not an IP match. I suppose that plus the interest in Scientology made it seem more likely than not. Cool Hand Luke 19:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Checkuser was shoddy work all around. Truthtell resolves to adjacent county (about 40 miles from me and served by a different Scientology church). Also the so-called common ISP is not the one I usually use as shown by my previous IPs available on my checkuser page (another farce, that) but was a ISP I have only been using recently. Not to mention that the entire thing was inappropriate checkuser fishing. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I did notice your service switch. You began using a different residential ISP before Truthtell's edits. Also, I imagine that this was one of the most common ISPs in your region. If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please email the committee at "arbcom-llists.wikimedia.org" Cool Hand Luke 20:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

- Hypothetical situation: If I were a member of Scientology staff tasked with editing Wikipedia article's in Scientology's favour, I'd have a sleeper account set up long before I started editing from a main account, as a fall-back in case the main account ended up having sanctions placed against it or came under scrutiny, I'd be damn sure to make sure that the main account had a completely different style to the sleeper account, in case anyone tried to link the two. And if I felt that that certain articles HAD to be edited during an arbitration case in which my main account (and its alternate usernames) were under close scrutiny, then I'd probably risk using the sleeper account, even though it has not been used for years and the sudden activity looks incredibly suspicious.

But that's just what I would do, you understand. Completely hypothetical.

Needless to say, Truthtell is clearly a pro-Sci SPA and should be subject to any of the remedies or enforcments decided upon in this case. The Legendary Shadow! (talk) 11:32, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Yawn. Wait . . . Yawn. --Justallofthem (talk) 02:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

More than a yawn is appropriate, Justa. The Legendary Shadow is violating the terms of his unblock. I've proposed his siteban formally at the workshop. Durova^Charge! 03:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Jayen466

I confess to puzzlement over the diff links purported to illustrate that I have edited "disruptively and tendentiously, edit-warring and misrepresenting policy, particularly that relating to biographies of living people and sources, to advance his/her own agenda."

First, we have [16]. Both in my evidence and on the evidence talk page I had expressed a wish to be advised if arbitration scope actually included non-Scientology articles, and said that I would provide further evidence if the committee confirmed that the scope had expanded accordingly. I would have appreciated the courtesy of someone saying that it had. As it is, I have added a section on the history of the Rick Ross BLP to my evidence, as mentioned above. I would request that this evidence be referred to. Once arbitrators have done so, I would like it if someone could give me some hints as to what parts of the material I inserted were inappropriately sourced, or in which parts I failed to reflect significant viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in the most reliable sources, as available in googlebooks, where I did most of my initial research. I simply reported what I found there.

Secondly, we have [17] I am sorry, in today's age, where digital editing equipment is ubiquitous, it is very easy to include a radio station's identification somewhere in a recording. If it is a question of a critical BLP allegation, as here, the site where a purported radio broadcast that is not available anywhere else is located should be reliable. I said that it was not clear to me if this was the case here. As for it not being a podcast, the URL is http://theedge.podango.com/podcast_episode/3805/92359/The_Edge_with_Tom_Smith/Jefferson_Hawkins_Interview_1 (note the word podcast in the URL); besides, the file does not appear to be online any more, for whatever reason. Please note that I have never removed the allegation sourced to this in the David Miscavige article. All I have done is call a podcast a podcast and express, here in these proceedings, an inability to decide whether or not such a podcast qualifies as a reliable source. Is this misrepresenting policy?

Third, we have [18], in which Spidern expressed unhappiness that I marked a RS/N discussion as closed several days after the last comment, and after I thought we had jointly addressed concerns in the intervening time to the extent that the situation described in the original RS/N post actually no longer obtained. I don't think that was unreasonable? At any rate, I apologised to Spidern and he accepted my apology.

Lastly, we have a single diff from Voxpopulis. I obviously should have responded to this in more detail, which I have now done, but I assumed people would check the talk page, and the sources given. To summarise, "The United States have taken a partially supportive stance towards Scientology in relation to Germany" was not "unsourced", as Voxpopulis asserted. The cited article by Schön refers to

• "the amazing difference between the American media's predominantly negative home news on Scientology and the at least partially supportive stance in the Scientology vs. Germany controversy"
• specific criticism of Germany by the US government, notably "the critique in the State Department's annual Human Rights Report since 1993",
• State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns explaining "the American position as follows: "'We have criticized the Germans on this ...""
• the "asylum granted to a German Scientologist".

As for the reversion of the phrase "the most despicable sort of propaganda", this phrase, inserted by Voxpopulis, simply did not occur in the cited source at all, and I had absolutely no idea where Voxpopulis had got it from. Please check the cited source; if what Voxpopulis had written had been in it, I would not have reverted such an addition. Lastly, please note that the GA reviewer expressed puzzlement with Voxpopulis's assertion that the Hollywood lobby should be of central importance to this article (the implication being that Scientologist Hollywood actors dictate US foreign policy, which, frankly, I consider rather unlikely). Jayen466 17:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you can help here ... What in your opinion, and in no more than 100 words, is the biggest single step that ArbCom could take to put an end permanently to the endless round of bickering, squabbling and POV-pushing that characterises this set of articles? — Roger Davies ^talk 19:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Clearly privilege scholarly sources, as behooves an encyclopedia and as we do in every other topic area, restrict news sources to the most high-end news sources (Time magazine, New York Times, LA Times, and including mainstream local papers for local reporting), ban the mining of primary sources (court documents, Hubbard's writings, Scientology websites) not referenced in the same way in reliable secondary sources, to prevent WP becoming a vehicle for the publication of original research (as you did in the 2007 Sai Baba case), ban the use of private websites as sources and make it an offense for an editor to insert links to private sites they are involved in, as per the 2006 Sai Baba case, stress the importance of using convenience links only if the relevant site hosts that material with a proper copyright license, as per WP:ELNEVER and WP:LINKVIO.

BLPs to be sourced to high-quality sources -- and no derogatory BLP material sourced to porn magazines, to podcasts on private webpages, to student newspapers, to reporters' blogs, or to celebrity gossip mags.

Take seriously the implementation of WP:NPA vis-a-vis members of religious minorities.

Institute a three-strike rule against offenders, first a warning, then a week-long topic ban, then a month-long topic ban, then curtains.

These are some ideas. Jayen466 21:10, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I acknowledge that these are 200 words, and a bunch of things, but I hope you'll consider them as good-faith suggestions nonetheless. Jayen466 21:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "porn magazines" has to do with Scientology, but the matter came up in regard to the Prem Rawat dipsutes, so perhaps Jayen is conflating the two. In that regard, I found significant sources that showed Playboy magazine has had an excellent reputation for fact checking.[19][20][21] Further, many college newspapers easily meet our requirements for reliable sources, as do reporter's blogs published in the websites of mainstream newspapers. While scholarly sources are good in within their field of expertise and the topic of the paper or book, many editors will discount their reliability when they make statements contrary to their own POVs (as evidenced in the Prem Rawat case). Jayen himself has advocated the use of a partisan biography published by followers which has been found to contain significant errors and omissions, so I'm not sure what he really means by "high-quality sources". Jayen's suggestion about NPA and "members of religious minorities" is a problem. NPA already covers personal attacks adequately. But a recurring problem with articles on small religious movements is that Wikipedia often attracks followers who become single purpose accounts. If pointing out conflicts of interest becomes a personal attack then it won't be any easier to deal with POV pushing.   Will Beback  talk  22:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the cases on the evidence page involved questionable material cited to Penthouse (magazine). No reputable encyclopedia would source articles on mainstream topics on which there is significant academic discourse to such publications. Not Encyclopaedia Britannica, nor the Gale Group.

The suggestion to raise the bar for sourcing on the Scientology articles reflects the longstanding problems we are having here. I believe that by raising the bar, in light of the exceptionally contentious nature of this topic, disputes can be lessened.

As for the Andrea Cagan biography on Rawat, let's leave that discussion to the Rawat arbcom case – except to say that what I have argued for in that arbcom case, as you are aware, is that the Cagan book should be treated as per our standard policies and guidelines concerning WP:SPS and the use of self-published sources in WP:BLP. That means, no statements about third parties, and nothing unduly self-serving. So if you are saying that "Jayen himself has advocated the use of a partisan biography published by followers which has been found to contain significant errors and omissions", you are not really reporting what I did say. What I did say is here. Please compare. I understand that when I say "fine to use as per WP:SPS etc." there is a "fine to use" in that sentence, but the restrictions imposed by WP:SPS are really quite considerable and designed to prevent misuse of such sources.

Lastly, if someone is a SPA, say they are an SPA. Why should there be a need to say, "His religion is X?" Apart from that, I can see no good reason why it should be fine for a Jew to work on the article on their rabbi, a Catholic to work on the article for the pope or a bishop, a muslim to work on the article on their imam, but that it should not be fine for a premie, or an ex-premie for that matter, to work on the article on Rawat. An editor should not have to take recourse to the argument that another editor "is a premie". The person's editing is either demonstrably problematic or it's not; either way, his being a premie is not the problem. Jayen466 00:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The decision here is likely to serve as a !precedent for the Prem Rawat case, and many of the issues overlap. I'm sorry if we're miscommunicating. By "promoting" a book I mean "advocating its use as a usable source", not trying to increase sales or some such. Allowing only selected scholars and newspapers as reliable sources, while allowing "quasi-authorized", sort-of-self-published biographies that have been shown to be biased and erroneous doesn't seem like a good plan for producing high-quality, NPOV articles. The general idea of setting different standards for negative versus positive sources likewise doesn't seem likely to produce NPOV articles. As for conflicts of interest by editors of articles on new religious groups, they are not altogether different from the problesm with articles on other topics about which editors are passionate. However there are demonstrable differences between articles on large, old religious movements versus small, new movements.   Will Beback  talk  08:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

There are differences between the Rawat and Scientology cases as well as similarities. As for "different standards for negative versus positive sources", I am sure you are aware that such differences are already present in WP:BLP policy, which has several provisions that apply only, or especially, to poorly sourced negative or potentially defamatory information. Examples: "Administrators encountering BLPs that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no neutral version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).", "Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is disparaging and written non-neutrally", etc.. Jayen466 09:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, when it comes to poorly sourced information in BLPs, it's more urgent to remove negative information than positive. (Not that it's always pssobile to categorize information as positive or negative). But when it comes to the standards for sourcing, we should avoid having different rules. If we say that only the most reliable sources should be used to BLPs then that should apply across the board, with no special exemption for sources produced by fans or followers.   Will Beback  talk  17:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Jayen466 18:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Jayen466, at first glance I think your suggestions have merit. Theoretically, most of your proposals are already policy, yet I see a lot of questionable sourcing in these articles (heavy reliance on primary sources, often of dubious provenance, often used to "refute" statements in apparent violation of WP:SYN). Do you think you can post some well-organized headings with evidence of some egregious violations—particularly ones in BLPs? It would also be also useful to explain why these policy violations haven't been removed. Cool Hand Luke 18:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I see you have several examples. I'm more interested in is how they got this way and why they haven't been fixed. Cool Hand Luke 18:36, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I've posted diffs for the David Miscavige example here. This concerned allegations of illegal activity on the part of David Miscavige, sourced to an affidavit and, I believe, first introduced in April 2007. No evidence was given that the affidavit had received coverage in secondary sources, as required by present BLP policy and BLP policy in force at the time. The material stayed in because a group of editors edit-warred until the other side gave up. A BLP/N thread failed to resolve the matter. As far as I can tell, the material remained in the article for 21 months. The main editor objecting to the presence of the material was Steve_Dufour (talk · contribs). Jayen466 03:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement - Cirt

Regarding Propsed enforcement - Cirt - To make this simpler: As is already required for all administrators per WP:UNINVOLVED, I acknowledge that I am an involved party on this topic, and agree to refrain from enforcing discretionary sanctions under the provision of this case. Cirt (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Call for evidence

Further evidence of disruptive behaviour would be very welcome, preferably focusing on editors not already mentioned in the Findings of Fact. In particular, evidence is sought of: interference in biographies of living people; slow edit-warring; incivility, sources; POV-pushing; and tag-teaming. The evidence does not need to be limited to editors already mentioned in this case. For ease of reference, best is if:

1. the new evidence is on the /Evidence page, clearly headed "New evidence by {name}"
2. is concise and factual, with few words and many clear diffs

As mentioned above, it is unnecessary to supply new evidence for people already mentioned in the findings of fact, unless it is particularly clear and compelling. Thanks in advance, — Roger Davies ^talk 18:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#New_evidence_by_Cirt. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 23:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Scientology remedies - 4 and 5

Mackensen proposed this alternative to remedies #4 and #5 on my talkpage. I like it; I agree that this is a similar broad sort of conflict. Unless there are objections, I would like to propose a similar remedy in the alternative, and I do plan to incorporate the "hit on the head with sticks" language. Cool Hand Luke 01:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

As a consolidated version of #4 and #5, you might want to consider some variant of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar 2#On notice. There, again, we had a wide-ranging conflict where naming names would have been difficult and necessarily incomplete. Instead of granular findings we handed the administrators a stick (even if Brad was the only one who used it). I agree that the presence of discretionary sanctions makes #5 redundant. Mackensen (talk) 01:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Not so keen on that. See:

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_enforcement#View_by_Durova
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_enforcement#View_by_Durova_2

Discretionary sanctions have not been effective in large disputes where partisans jam noticeboards. I brought this case to RFAR after a succession of other fora had failed, in the hope that arbitrators would settle it definitively. That means, ideally, that you hand out specific remedies yourselves rather than pass that responsibility back to the community which has been unable to act upon the last set of discretionary santions. The last Scientology case lasted three months. The current case is even longer. There were two other arbitrations before those. Those facts in themselves constitute strong discouragement against any Wikipedian initiating a fifth case, and dilute the effect of any statements that purport to be encouragement or warning. Please, make the hard decisions you were elected to make. The buck stops somewhere or else it stops nowhere. Durova^Charge! 01:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea is that we cannot be exhaustive in listing people who might merit sanctions. We're handing all admins the right under #3, and I think they should have broad discretion to look at anyone—whether or not they have a finding in this case. Cool Hand Luke 01:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but in any case, please include the standard provision(s) regarding appeals and logs. Cheers, Ncmvocalist (talk) 02:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Roger. May not be useful but maybe something like this: All editing restrictions imposed under remedies 3 and 4 are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology/Log of with a diff of the warning. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Scientology remedy #7 - Editors instructed

Whether or not justified, some people are afraid of retaliation if they speak against the teachings of the Church. I would propose a modification of 6A; with phrasing: "To edit on these from only a single user account. If it is not their sole or main account, they must identify their accounts to a member of ArbCom." This is an unusual clause, but Scientology is an unusual subject. (For what it's worth, to the best of my knowledge, I have not edited a Scientology article under any of my accounts. I have removed, edited, or reinserted some entries about Anonymous events in year articles, but I don't think they have been affected by my feelings about it.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The remedy has been edited (and renumbered 7), and now seems acceptable. If a the primary account of a registered secondary account gets harassed, we may need to reconsider phrasing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Further evidence

I have posted further evidence here on the following topics:

• Edits to the David Miscavige BLP
• SPAs on the anti-Scientology side of the debate, to complement Cirt's list of SPAs on the Scientology side
• Wikinews
• Reverts by various editors suggestive, in varying degrees, of WP:OWN
• Representative coverage of Rick Ross in reliable sources, the viewpoints of which we are required to reflect in order to comply with NPOV
• Four-year history of anonymous IPs resolving to the New Jersey geographical area making POV-based edits supportive of Rick Ross to Rick Ross (consultant) and related pages. I would suggest that all of these edits can reasonably be attributed to Mr Ross himself. Please examine the evidence. Jayen466 17:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Evidence from another user.

I've just added evidence concerning sources (Proposed principle 3) and the behaviour of Jayen466 (Proposed finding of fact 11). Apologies to all for contributing at a late stage. MartinPoulter (talk) 00:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The argument against principle 3 is frankly bizarre—it's basically a word-for-word copy from WP:OR. The fact that many editors are arguing strenuously against it leads me to believe that this site-wide policy isn't being applied in this topic. If anything, I think we should add corrective remedies to address this problem. Cool Hand Luke 14:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

In dealing with findings of fact, you yourself pointed out that they must be relevant to the case; proposed principles should be no different. I don't think that the crux of this case is a lack of willingness to reference academic sources, but consistent disagreement and disruptive editing patterns which have plagued this group of articles. Vassyana actually expressed the reasons for my concerns quite well, acknowledging that context is important, and that academic sources have their strengths for certain types of content, as newspaper sources have their strengths in others. There's certainly more to understanding a religion than studying its theology, which is what available scholarly sources predominantly cover. Having an emphasis on academic sources without even acknowledging the availability of high quality journalistic sources leaves room for further sourcing conflicts in the future, when citing principles from this case. ←Spidern→ 15:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the striking features of this case is how heavily Scientology articles rely upon primary sources and copious amounts of synthesis. I'm not talking about a mere lack of peer review journals, but of heavy reliance on primary sources with absolutely no secondary guidance, as seen in Religious Technology Center, L. Ron Hubbard and the military, and many other articles. This is a serious problem, and we should address it. Arbitrators are discussing the best way to go about it, but I think we all agree that previously uninvolved parties should look at these articles. Cool Hand Luke 15:13, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, and up until a certain point, this could be seen on the main Scientology article as well. I don't think that anyone is in disagreement about the over-reliance of primary sources here. ←Spidern→ 15:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

So what's the problem with the finding? It doesn't say that peer-reviewed sources are the only ones acceptable. Like WP:OR, it merely says that they're the best when available. Cool Hand Luke 15:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem with isolated emphasis on using academic sources: The ability for it to be quoted out of context in attempts to suppress the use of legitimate and reliable media sources. We have seen editors reduce respected media outlets such as USA today, LA Times, New York Times to be labeled as "tabloids", and remove such references on the basis that they are unreliable and that scholarly sources should be used in their stead. Instead of endlessly bickering over which one is more reliable in a content dispute, both should be expressed with in-text attribution to the person or organization making the claim. ←Spidern→ 16:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedy #8

This looks like a good idea, but I have some questions about who would qualify under the terms of the remedy as "previously involved", as well as how to possibly recruit previously uninvolved editors. Any possible clarification? John Carter (talk) 18:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think any established editor that has not done more than maintenance editing (clear vandalism, minor copyediting, etc.) would be fine. I would suggest excluding newly established accounts, Wikipedia:WikiProject Scientology/Participants, and others that have made substantial edits. It is not really that large a group and editors familiar with the area will spot a ringer quickly enough. BLP has always been my prime concern in the Scn articles and I have stated that the Church of Scientology is a big boy and does not need me to defend it from critics but individual Scientologists are singled out by critics for ill treatment and I do try to keep an eye out there. --Justallofthem (talk) 18:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. I note both of us are thus ruled out, then, as members of the project listed above. Where and how would we acquire input from other editors to edit these articles? I hope you understand I'm not disagreeing, just not sure whether these disinterested but still hopefully knowledgable editors are supposed to come from. John Carter (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I certainly do not think that the remedy precludes either of us from editing BLP articles but is instead simply a call for more eyes. Arbs are watched by lots of editors and this seems to me to simply be a generalized call for third opinions or perhaps something more proactive. The way I would approach it as an involved editor would be to respect the edit of the reviewer and address any disagreement on the talk page and by RfC though I seriously doubt that I would have any objection to someone enforcing policy in Scientology artricles as that is all I ever asked for.. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, point granted. But I get the impression that neither of us, or any other members of that project, would be really "wanted" to edit any non-biographical articles. Unfortunately, I get the impression that those articles are probably among the most lopsidedly edited by Scientologists, leaving the potentially most biased articles "out of reach" of members of the Scientology WikiProject. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but it doesn't indicate who should work to balance those articles, which need such attention. John Carter (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

By "lopsidedly edited by Scientologists", I assume you mean that Scientologists are under-represented and critics over-represented. The jury is very much still out on these proposals and I have serious reservations about the precedents that Davies seems to be desirous of setting as regards so-called SPA's. Many editors here, especially in technical subjects, and in emotionally highly-charged subjects, edit almost exclusively in their areas of interest. Personally, I have plenty of edits in non-Scientology articles under my previous accounts although, with my present limited resources for editing, I restrict myself to my main area of interest here, BLP issues in the Scientology articles and this arb. Does that make me an SPA? Guess so if we define SPA as a time-dependent condition, i.e. Cirt was an SPA and now he is not; in the past I was not and now I am. New definition. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Without comment on the merits otherwise, it has not been productive to frame the discussion in the binary terms of Scientologists and critics. Durova^Charge! 19:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict response to Justallofthem) You assume incorrectly, Justallofthem. I was referring to Cirt's documentation provided that there have been several pieces in the press about how our Scientology articles are apparently disproportionately edited by what Roger Davies called the "'pro' faction". That inevitably leads to at least the perception of COI. I still don't see how we could get editors who don't have a prior interest in the subject to actively edit articles they have shown no real prior interest in. And, by the way, I was in no way trying to criticize you, Cirt, or anyone else who has previously edited the articles. If my comments were perceived as indicating otherwise, my apologies. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

If you mean Wikiscanner stuff, I believe the press was simply commenting that the Church IPs have edited. In actual fact, such edits are usually reverted and the disproportionate amount of editing that actually sticks is by critics of Scientology. And Durova, the truth may not be productive but it remains the truth, nonetheless. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Justallofthem here. Just look at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#David_Miscavige_BLP. This had three or four Scientologists editing the article on David Miscavige. The press will report this as: "Scientologists edit Wikipedia". But the end result was that Scientology opponents pushed their edit through. It is just a fact that "Scientology editors lose edit war against Scientology critics on Wikipedia" does not make an attention-grabbing headline. But for who won the contest, this is clear from Scientology's Wiki-humiliation. Again, not a headline that will make it into the press. [22] C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'encyclopédie. What falls by the wayside is neutral, dispassionate coverage of Scientology, which is what an encyclopedia should deliver. For an example, here is the Britannica article: [23] I consider this a fair, mature article that exemplifies the general tenor that I would like to see in Wikipedia. But I am also keenly aware that many of those in present attendance would rather see their keyboard melt under their fingers than accept such a proposition. Or am I wrong here? Jayen466 21:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as a method for finding uninvolved participants is concerned, has the Arbitration Committee considered posting a request to that effect in the Signpost, either tacking it on to "Reports on Lengthy Litigation" or even doing a WikiProject Scientology featurette? ←Spidern→ 19:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternately, maybe, Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative Views, and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism might be willing to involve themselves to some degree or other. John Carter (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. A notice can be placed in all those after the arb if the proposal passes. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

On second thought

The buck stops here or else it stops nowhere.

In light of Spidern's suggestion to carry this absurd proposal all the way to the Signpost, I'll go ahead and post what I really think of it. And if it does go that far then I'll seek out the Signpost lead editor's consent to publish a rebuttal. At any rate I may do a WikiVoices segment on it, because this is more of the tepid nonsense that is objectionable about purported 'encouragement' findings. Let's see how many of an independent panel of Wikipedians actually feel the slightest bit inclined toward intervening, due to that proposal.

Scientology is a dispute that all sensible, experienced, and uninvolved editors avoid like the plague. Almost the only parties who posted here that weren't following up on some prior history or other were John254 and Kristen Ericksen, which turned out shortly afterward to be two incarnations of the same troll. Although experienced and uninvolved, I have a foolhardy streak about assuming good faith when addressing longstanding disputes. Two years ago I attempted one of the simplest interventions imaginable: administrative action upon a confirmed checkuser result. A quarter of the time since then has been wasted in arbitrations on the subject, and if the Arbitration Committee had any actual intent to encourage more participation in this area they would have managed those cases in a timely manner. In three years and over 50 cases of arbitration experience, the COFS and Scientology cases are the two longest in which I have ever participated.

So by tacking on this milquetoast proposal, the Committee is either hopelessly out of touch or attempting to insult the intelligence of fellow Wikipedians. Can they really suppose that a rational uninvolved person would end up encouraged to participate, by any reading of this case? Experience has made me wary of this kind of finding, because it usually comes with a subtext of We arbitrators don't want to make the hard decisions we were elected to make, so now we'll try to pass the buck to somebody else. It speaks poorly of the Committee that this proposal even went live on the page. The buck stops here or else it stops nowhere. Durova^Charge! 20:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Good points certainly, although you seem to be contradicting your earlier comment that Scientology editing is not marked by polarized viewpoints, or rather that it is not productive to frame it so. In defense of the proposal, I repeat that it is simply a request for more eyes and, unless it is to be the entirety of the remedies, does not necessarily represent a dereliction of duty on the part of the proposing arbitrator. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

You misstate my earlier point. Durova^Charge! 20:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Then I apologize. That was not my intention. I was pointing out that in the earlier instance you seem to object to my characterizing the "business-as-usual" in the Scn articles as Scientologists vs. critics while here you state that the uninvolved avoid the articles like the plague. My point above and yours here seem to be flip sides of the same coin. In any event, I see little wrong with the arbs asking that some new eyes look at the articles. I think it is unreasonable to assume that this arbitration is going to sort out, what 403 articles or some ridiculous number like that. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that. Several factors here converge to drive uninvolved editors away. One is the failure of the dispute resolution to actually achieve stable resolution. 'Religion and politics' are traditionally taboo topics in many social settings, and a substantial number of Wikipedia's arbitrations are about religion or politics. It does not necessarily follow that all of those cases are binary disputes, though. At Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gundagai editors, for instance, the political issue was Australian Aboriginal rights, but only one editor was disruptive. So saying 'uninvolved editors avoid this' is very different from asserting 'this is about pro-Aboriginal editors and anti-Aboriginal editors': most uninvolved people shied away from the Gundagai dispute also, simply because it had lasted for months and consumed the time of everyone who tried to help. But in the end there was no evidence that anyone was obstructing the rights or culture of the Aborigines: merely one passionate but misguided editor who mistook 'that's not quite the way we do things here' for political opposition. Durova^Charge! 22:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's slowest arbitration case?

As a follow-up to a point above, am curious about the duration of Wikipedia's other arbitration cases. So what holds the title of 'slowest arbitration case'?

This case

• 3 months and 10 days old, as of now

Other monumentally long cases

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways 2 opened 2 January 2008, closed 7 April 2008: 3 months and 5 days
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IRC opened 26 December 2007, closed 9 February 2008: 2 months and 14 days
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SlimVirgin-Lar opened 23 July 2008, closed 30 October 2008: 2 months and 7 days
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV opened 16 May 2008, closed 24 September 2008: 4 months and 8 days
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS opened 2 July 2007, closed 23 September 2007: 2 months and 21 days

So, dear arbitrators, unless I've missed something you have slightly under one month left to finish 'encouraging' uninvolved members of the community to join the fun before this becomes the slowest arbitration case in site history. Are any of you considering a second career as motivational speakers? Durova^Charge! 00:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, Durova, it's a tough nut to crack, and a lot of information to take in. I'd rather we do it slowly and properly than quickly and inefficiently. Jayen466 08:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, it is a lot to take in, especially when it's your first case :) It has about 200 pages (printed) of evidence and workshop (nearly all of which I've been through two or three times); involves at least thirty editors; and literally thousands of diffs. Thank you for your understanding,  Roger Davies ^talk 08:52, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

There is definitely a lot of material to go through in this case and I do not fault the Arbitrators for doing their due diligence. The amount of material indicated by Roger Davies (talk · contribs) is certainly not a small amount to go through. Cirt (talk) 18:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Btw, Durova, re Cirt's SPA or near-SPA status, note that I posted some more evidence on the evidence page. The most salient points are this:

• Of the top eleven articles in Cirt's contributions list, ten are about Scientology. Eight of them are about Scientology parodies or criticism.
• Almost all of Cirt's FAs are about mocking and/or criticising Scientology (A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, Trapped in the Closet (South Park), The Joy of Sect, Xenu, The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, Battlefield Earth (film), Hell Is Other Robots), or focus on similar aspects of other new religious movements (Getting It: The_psychology of est, 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, Lord of the Universe).
• Counting the edits to Cirt's twenty-five top articles, over 75% of all edits are to Scientology articles, and 92% are about NRMs and self-help therapies in general.
• Counting the edits to Cirt's 100 top articles, 82% are about NRMs, with the vast majority of those about Scientology.
• Cirt's most-edited article by far, with more than twice as many edits as his or her no. 2 article, is Project Chanology, about the fight of Anonymous (group) against Scientology. Jayen466 11:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Jayen, if you run an analysis of my edit count you'll find I made four times as many edits to my first featured article as to my second. That's because the first was being owned by two disruptive editors when I first joined Wikipedia (both of whom have since been sitebanned) and it's a high traffic article that receives frequent vandalism, while hardly anyone cares about a country road in Vermont. Raw edit count is a poor metric when comparing featured content contributions in controversial v. uncontroversial areas. Durova^Charge! 18:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly true, and a good point to bear in mind. Jayen466 23:49, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Britannica

File:Encyclopædia Britannica logo.jpg

So, why not do a quick roll-call. Here is the Encyclopedia Britannica article. Who in present attendance considers its general approach an example worth emulating? Or avoiding like the plague? Views? Does it cover enough or too much criticism? Does it cover enough or too much theology? Does anyone note a clear difference from Wikipedia coverage? If yes, is that a good or a bad thing? Jayen466 22:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

They forgot that it's never simply L. Ron Hubbard, it is always science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. --Justallofthem (talk) 22:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't you mean pulp fiction writer? Cool Hand Luke 00:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

No, that would never do. I tried that as a compromise. It has to be science-fiction writer to to get the maximum negative effect and to front-load the article against Hubbard. I can just see:

Christianity (from the word Xριστός "Christ") is a monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Galilean carpenter Jesus as presented in the New Testament..

Yeah, that'll go over big. --Justallofthem (talk) 03:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

To me science fiction writer is a compliment. Oh well. Jehochman ^Talk 23:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Okay. Cool Hand Luke is pointing to the fact that at the Scientology portal, it does say "pulp fiction" writer, and has for some time. Not many of our readers read the Portal page though.

Justallofthem is pointing to the fact that the Scientology article text contains a comment, right at the beginning, saying:

<!--While Scientology websites and a variety book ads, blogs, and chat pages refer to him as a [[speculative fiction]] author, most of the most reputable, independent sources, ranging from encyclopedias (Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press' World Encyclopedia, etc) to prominent newspapers and magazines (TIME, The Guardian) refer to him only as a [[science fiction]] author. Wikipedia requires that articles be based on the most reputable, reliable sources. Please discuss on Talk page before changing (old discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scientology/Archive_23#Speculative_fiction) -->

I believe there have been edit wars over "science fiction writer" at Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard and other articles, with any change in the lead away from "science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard" being fiercely resisted, and anyone trying to make it being assumed to be acting in bad faith. Jayen466 07:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, here is the Columbia encyclopedia:

Church of Scientology philosophical religion founded by L(afayette) Ron(ald) Hubbard, 1911-86, b. Tilden, Nebr. Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950) first set forth the basis of his philosophy, offering an alternative path to overcoming physical and mental stress. The church believes that a person's spirit can be cleared of past painful experiences through a process called "auditing," freeing the person of the burdens that interfere with happiness and self-realization. The first church was established in Los Angeles in 1954. A prolific author, Hubbard wrote many works on Scientology and is also noted for his science-fiction novels and short stories.

— Columbia Encyclopedia, 2008

I own a print copy of the 1994 Encyclopædia Britannica. The entry on Scientology says, "developed in the United States in the 1950s by the author L. Ron Hubbard". Jayen466 08:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Over the last fifteen years significant information about Scientology has been published in reliable sources. Much of this information has appeared in response to the CoS aggressive actions against critics, and its cyber-warfare on Usenet. See Scientology and the Internet. The statement you cite, Jayen466, looks like a bright red cherry. To those of you who do not realize that CoS is engaging in information warfare on Wikipedia, you need to pull your heads out of the sand and do a bit of reading. Jehochman ^Talk 08:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that these encyclopedias are wrong in their approach and Wikipedia needs to do better than them? Because that's an argument I have heard before. Jayen466 08:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Nope. I said that you are cherry picking and using outdated information. Jehochman ^Talk 08:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Outdated? The Columbia Encyclopedia article is from 2008, the Encyclopædia Britannica article linked above is the current one, 2009. Jayen466 09:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

See Columbia Encyclopedia. The sixth edition was published in 2000, not 2008. It is not clear whether that Scientology article was updated in 2000, or not. You should note that other encyclopedias and tertiary sources are generally not used as reliable sources for Wikipedia. We look primarily to secondary sources. You should also note that the Columbia Encyclopedia article is far less comprehensive than ours. Jehochman ^Talk 09:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You said, I own a print copy of the 1994 Encyclopædia Britannica. The entry on Scientology says, "developed in the United States in the 1950s by the author L. Ron Hubbard". (emphasis added) Jehochman ^Talk 09:09, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Do any of the arbs still fail to see the tendentious behavior noted in FOF 11? Jehochman ^Talk 09:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The Columbia Encyclopedia article also says that the sixth edition is the current one. In what sense is it outdated? I also linked the 2009 EB article above, as I pointed out before. Here it is again, for your reference.

As for the use of tertiary sources, in cases like the present one, where there is a suspicion of an extreme POV imbalance, I think it is a useful "reality check" to compare the style and tenor of Wikipedia coverage to that in reputable encyclopedias, like Columbia and Britannica. I think it is noteworthy that if I were to try to (and I am trying) to use the tone and weighting that Columbia and Britannica have employed here in Wikipedia, I would be (and have been) accused of being a POV pusher, and worse. Jayen466 09:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The Columbia article is short indeed, but just note where its NPOV compass is pointing:

Church of Scientology philosophical religion founded by L(afayette) Ron(ald) Hubbard, 1911-86, b. Tilden, Nebr. Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1950) first set forth the basis of his philosophy, offering an alternative path to overcoming physical and mental stress. The church believes that a person's spirit can be cleared of past painful experiences through a process called "auditing," freeing the person of the burdens that interfere with happiness and self-realization. The first church was established in Los Angeles in 1954. A prolific author, Hubbard wrote many works on Scientology and is also noted for his science-fiction novels and short stories.

Scientology has confronted suspicions from many sides during its history. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association questioned the tenets of Scientology during the 1950s, and in the 1960s, the governments of England, Australia, and the United States opened investigations into church activities, particularly for suspected practices of tax evasion. The church's status as a religion was, however, ultimately established in those and many other countries. The church has continued to face governmental challenges, perhaps most notably in Germany, where it has been accused of being antidemocratic and unconstitutional and where its members have experienced personal discrimination. Some, including some former members, view the church as an elaborate cult, a charge the church and many religious scholars deny. In 1996 there were more than 3,000 churches, missions, and groups worldwide, with headquarters in Los Angeles.

Jayen466 09:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You're still cherry picking the sources most favorable to the point of view you have been promoting. What is necessary for Wikipedia is to have editors who look at the entire set of reliable sources and strive for neutrality by selecting facts in proportion to their relative prevalence. The allegation is that you have not done that. We do not arrive at neutral point of view through a clash of opposing forces. Jehochman ^Talk 09:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, do you have any evidence to back up your disputing Jayen on this point? I see this going on and on and Jayen providing solid evidence that sources that are truly trying to be neutral on the subject do not front-load their article that a belief system that is regularly followed by hundreds of thousands and that has helped millions is a science-fiction creation. That is what the critics want to say but they cannot come right out and say it in the lead so they do the next best thing. Do you have any evidence to support your accusatory tone? Jayen is a careful and thorough researcher and his only flaw so far as this project is concerned is that he attempts to be truly neutral on the subject of Scientology. Apparently that is enough of a sin for him to be under heavy fire here. --Justallofthem (talk) 18:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The clerks may as well start an archive and archive this thread. Arbitration exists to address conduct, not content. Comparative analysis of this type should occur elsewhere. Durova^Charge! 18:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear clerks, just archive Durova's remarks, if that's what she wants. :-D What you see above is a fine display of tendentious editing. It's a microcosm of the problems over at Scientology. The true believers will not stand for anyone besmirching what they view as axiomatic truths. It's their right to believe whatever they like, but they should not be editing our articles to support their beliefs. Jehochman ^Talk 19:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Durova, I think this is up to the arbitrators. It's just that if we're talking about NPOV, we need to get our bearings in the real world. People here are arguing that scholarly sources, usually considered the most reliable, have significant relaibility problems in this special case. Reputable encyclopedias like Columbia and Britannica are first misrepresented and then criticised as inadequate models for Wikipedia. All the while, editors are investing efforts into writing featured articles about children's cartoons lampooning Scientology. Isn't it time we asked ourselves what kind of business we are in here? Jayen466 19:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, I don't think you understand. What you describe as "tendentious editing" is the Columbia Encyclopedia article, copied verbatim from here. If you feel they use Weasel words, write to them and tell them. At any rate, nobody suggested that we copy that sentence.

Note that I only looked the Columbia article up because someone had inserted a comment at the beginning of the Scientology article saying that we must say "science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard" in our lead sentence because Columbia and Britannica did. Upon checking, I found that neither of them in fact did. That's all. Jayen466 19:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

With that "true believer" levelled at me, I suppose, I guess I can now proudly say that I have been "accused" of being a believer in Rawat, a believer in Osho, and a believer in Scientology here in this project. For the record, I am neither. What I do believe in is the validity of the religious instinct in man, and the appropriateness of respecting any religion that is embraced in honesty and sincerity by another. I consider every religious person my brother or sister in faith. Jayen466 19:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Weasel

WP:WEASEL: Some, including some former members, view the church as an elaborate cult, a charge the church and many religious scholars deny. Who? Where are the references? This text is a poor example for Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 10:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably should be many, but we need names and affiliations. And much of this discussion belongs on the article talk page(s), rather than here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course. What's happening here is a demonstration of the type of editing that occurs over there. We need to reduce the stonewalling, socking, and circular arguments so that neutral editors can participate. As things are now, people are strongly discouraged from participating. Jehochman ^Talk 15:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, perhaps it would be better to submit an evidence section--particularly with diffs about which editors inserted weasel wording. Simply stating that an article has weasel words isn't much use; articles on many topics are poorly written. Durova^Charge! 18:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Before this section was split off, it was a retort to Jayden466's suggestion that we emulate another encyclopedia. I was calling out the poor writing of that encyclopedia, and suggesting that we don't copy their mistakes. Jehochman ^Talk 19:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind, please, that this page exists to discuss the proposed decision rather than to engage in debate about content. Editors in arbitration have been known to straggle off topic tactically, in order to expand the volume of words on the page and make it less likely that arbitrators will notice cogent points raised by other participants. When one editor does that, the way to raise it to the arbitrators' attention is to post evidence or request clerking. As experienced as you are, Jehochman, it is surprising to see your approach in this instance. Durova^Charge! 21:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Apparently we come from different parts of the solar system. Surely any arbitrator can see what's going on here. Look, a fresh diff that shows sanitization of an article by pushing negative information into a "controversy" section. Everywhere I look in Scientology, there is evidence of bad editing. Just pick any diff at random. Will not the Committee look at the voluminous evidence already in position and do something about it. For goodness sake, please don't punt it back to us at WP:AE with a lame-o article probation. Name names and dish out sitebans or topic bans. Once you knock out the most disruptive editors, the others will hopefully get the point and new editors will hopefully be encouraged to join the editing. A general admonishment to check for NPOV does little good if the tendentious editors are left in control. Jehochman ^Talk 23:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You and I are very much in agreement that punting it back to AE is not going to work. As stated above, a principal reason for opening this case was that AE had nearly two years to address this topic, and failed. Durova^Charge! 23:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't mix the criticism or reception of a belief system with the presentation of that belief system itself. But by all means, look through my edits tonight. I have added much basic information on Scientology' organizational structure that was completely missing, as well as info about Scientology's bureaucratic elements (probably offputting to most), Scientology's belief that psychiatry was responsible for the Holocaust (dito), and info on the Rehabilitation Project Force (dito), a very controversial component which had not even been mentioned until tonight. I also threw out the bit about Scientologists feeding the homeless in Germany's cold winter. Here, knock yourself out: [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30] Sources are David G. Bromley and Douglas E. Cowan, from Gallagher/Ashcraft (2006), and J. Gordon Melton (2000). Jayen466 00:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts to add sourced material. Wouldn't it be nice if editors with different ideas could work together collaboratively instead of playing this game of "the editor above should be banned because...". People don't need to agree all the time, but they need to try to form a common understanding and agree with one another sometimes. Arbitration has different outcomes. In the worst case, people fail to come together and somebody (or more) gets banned. In the best case, the participants get tired of the fight and decide to negotiate in good faith. Our arbitrators are tasked with figuring out which solution to employ here. At this moment I am glad not to have that responsibility. (Skips away, care free!) Jehochman ^Talk 00:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

"Name names and dish out sitebans or topic bans. Once you knock out the most disruptive editors, the others will hopefully get the point and new editors will hopefully be encouraged to join the editing." I fully agree with Jehochman. In my view, most people (on both "sides") are not editing neutrally in this topic and should be topic banned. We have to look at POV edits and articles in order to identify POV pushers. Cool Hand Luke 19:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed principle 10

Presumably the link to the essay on single purpose accounts implies approval of the essay or at least that the definition in there is the one being used in the principle. I don't understand the definition "A single-purpose account (SPA) is a user account that edits either a single article, a group of related articles, or performs edits to a group of unrelated articles in the same manner on Wikipedia." It's apparent that everyone must edit either a single article or a group of articles that are either related or unrelated. So the definition seems to say that everyone is an SPA unless they edit some articles in a different "manner" to others. What does that mean?

Also, it's likely that "expected to" is being used in the remedy to mean "required to" or "requested to" or something along the lines of "it would be nice if they did" since surely both reasoning and experience would tell the arbitrators to (literally) expect many SPAs to edit non-neutrally. Wouldn't it be better to actually say what's meant here and avoid ambiguous wording. The non-literal range of meanings covering "would be nice" and "required" is extremely broad. 87.254.71.25 (talk) 10:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Login and use your main account. Jehochman ^Talk 13:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have one. I've never posted under any account name, only under my IP, and to the best of my understanding there's no requirement for me to do otherwise. Now to be almost as blunt as you - kindly mind your manners. 87.254.71.25 (talk) 15:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

As per that IP's edit history here [31], your only edits other than to this page are three edits from 2007 to an article which is now a redirect which has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic. Particularly given the existing problem of anonymous edits coming from IPs, one could reasonably question whether you might be one of those editors. Personally, given the apparent history of your address, I would have to say that the question is not an unreasonable one. Using a user name would make it more clear what prior involvement in this topic you might have, as the history of your IP doesn't indicate any such history. John Carter (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

There wasn't a question. There wasn't a polite request either. There was a command based on an assumption. I use residential ADSL. The IP changes frequently. I don't remember for sure whether the edits in 2007 were mine anyway, but I don't think so. I'm sceptical that the other "anonymous" IPs you're talking about come from residential ADSL on the Isle of Man but at least you have the information to make that comparison if they do. I guess stretching a point anyone could theoretically go to the lengths to get a residential IP anywhere in the world but then that person could sign up for an account with it too and that wouldn't change anything, now would it? Bear in mind that I'm LESS anonymous than most people here - my IP is on display and if, for example, I were to libel you then you could bring legal action to get information about me direct from my ISP without having to go through the WMF as an initial step. Now, is ANY of that relevant to the questions I asked? Let's assume that I'm actually secretly L Ron Hubbard's love child, who has been slaving away to bias the Scientology articles one way or another, would that in ANY way matter to the questions I actually asked above? Would the answers be different? If you honestly (and bizarrely) think it matters then ask a checkuser whether they think I'm <whoever>. 87.254.71.25 (talk) 22:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed_decision#Cirt_2 -unnecessary and misleading

As Casilber mentions in #Cirt_2, it's redundant, as it's expected of all admins, not something unique to cirt, that they don't misuse their powers over an article with which they're involved. Also, to make such a decision public implies someone's done something they perhaps haven't, or is a person likely to act inappropriately. This could then be used by others to form an opinion about Cirt which would be inaccurate, or by those who perhaps have it in for Cirt, to show to those they want to convince that Cirt's a rotter. They could claim that Cirt's been advised against the appearance of abuse of powers, and they may imply that's due to Cirt abusing them in the past, when such abuse has not taken place. Giving a specific 'advisement' to Cirt implies that it has or that you think Cirt might try to do so, if you see what I mean. It's sort of patronising, like you're saying Cirt doesn't know how to proceed as an admin, at the very least, and in actual fact reads like a veiled statement of mistrust in Cirt's continued propriety.

It's unnecessary and misleading in light of the finding of fact:-

"Cirt 4) From careful examination of the submitted evidence, the committee concludes that, since his request for adminship in September 2008, Cirt does not appear to have deliberately violated policy and/or deliberately misused administrative tools."

This makes the Cirt 2 decision even more of an unnecessary slight slur on someone's character (even if you don't mean it that way, that's how it could be interpreted, and it could be used by others in future to imply things about a person or to form an opinion of them.) Sticky Parkin 18:57, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree here. There isn't a lot of reason to effectively penalize anyone while at the same time saying that they haven't done anything to be penalized for. Sending such ambiguous signals about anyone, admin or not, particularly if they deal with hotly contested topics, like Cirt has regularly done, evidently without any misconduct, only makes it easier for others to impugn him or otherwise come to what are conclusions that even the arbitrators think are wrong. John Carter (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement - Cirt section?

I note that per 3.4.3, Cirt is "advised to refrain from enforcing discretionary sanctions under the provisions of this case", and I have no particular objections to it, as it is standard for any apparently involved admin. My questions are how strongly advised is Cirt in this instance, and does the same apply to User:ChrisO and myself, who are also admins who deal with Scientology frequently. John Carter (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The proposal should be removed as superfluous. Administrators who are named parties in a case don't enforce any decisions from that case. When you specify something that is already a rule, you just create doubts and provide grounds for tendentious editing. It is better to remain silent and let the default rules apply. Jehochman ^Talk 20:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I should make clear that I don't deal with Scientology in an admin capacity - merely as an ordinary editor - and then only fairly infrequently, as my contributions list makes clear. But I presume that's sufficient involvement to be caught by the "Cirt clause", in any case. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It's extremely wise, I think, in this controversial area to separate users and administrators. Incidentally, if you refresh your memory about WP:UNINVOLVED, you'll see that whether an administrator is involved or not, depends entirely on their actions as a user.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Jehochman, only more strongly. There is no evidence to justify singling Cirt out in this unprecedented manner. He hasn't misused the tools. Durova^Charge! 21:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I profoundly agree with Durova and Jehochmann of course. See the above section.:) The proposed decision about Cirt is needless and groundless, and should go. Sticky Parkin 13:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I also echo what is being said above. I expressed my concerns on Roger Davies' talk page. Hefty allegations were brought against Cirt, which were found to be without merit. If a sysop's track record shows no previous sign of trouble in this regard, and policy already states as much, then why pass a formal remedy which could be misconstrued as a warning? ←Spidern→ 16:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the most striking aspects of the evidence is the proof it provides of the polarisation within this topic. The parties are deeply entrenched and even the slightest disagreement provokes another lengthy round of high-octane bickering. This is unacceptable.

One of the other striking aspects is the way in which both the pro's and the anti's insist their editing is neutral. To my mind, this is far from the case and the topic contains far too many articles that are hopelessly skewed in one form or another. Typical problems include synthesis, neutrality and undue weight. One reasonably uncontroversial example is the John Sweeney article, where - despite a distinguished forty year career as an investigative journalist, exposing many major scandals - over a third of the wordage is devoted to his Scientology documentary. Even as I write, discussions continue elsewhere about other examples.

An inescapable conclusion is that many current editors should WP:DISENGAGE; they have become too invested, their perceived or actual objectivity is compromised, and they spend too much time locking horns. The most effective, and easiest to enforce, way to achieve this is widespread topic-banning. This will clear the way for other, less invested, contributors to participate.

Now Cirt has been at the heart of controversy in this topic for some time and there is an acute need to reduce levels of drama. In this new landscape, it is in everybody's best interests, including Cirt's, if he/she concentrated on content building, where he/she has proven expertise and where there is mountains of work to be done.

The enforcement statement (which is not a remedy) carries no note of criticism. Unlike WP:UNINVOLVED, which is arguably limited only to articles an admin has edited and to users with whom an admin has strongly interacted, the enforcement provision merely extends the "Uninvolved" principle explicitly to the entire topic of 430 articles.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Roger, while I appreciate your analysis, and you are correct about the degree of polarization of many editors, your comment seems to perpetuate the myth that the skewing that actually appears in article space is more or less equally offensive on both sides of some imaginary "neutral presentation". Nothing could be further from the truth. The articles, by and large, have always been created by critics, skewed by critics, defended by critics, and the Scientologists attacked and driven off by critics. I am not saying that Scientologists have been blameless. I have seen plenty of edits by Scientologists that were inappropriate - usually either removing or misrepresenting sourced material. The difference between the inappropriate edits of Scientologists and the inappropriate edits of critics is that those of Scientologists are quickly reverted while those of critics generally stand unless a Scientologist is wiki-knowledgable enough and willing to invest the time to bring in non-involved parties by WP:3O and WP:RFC. The little Tom Cruise/ChrisO BLP issue mentioned in evidence is a good example of how stuff like that by a critic will stand unless a Scientologist challenges it. That is a direct result of the polarization of editors in the articles - only critics and Scientologists are deeply invested in the articles and critics outnumber and have the sympathies of the project on their side. Your example article is a good one. Here is another for you. In this version of Bowfinger, Cirt created a large section entitled "MindHead compared to Church of Scientology" in which he took the opportunity to repeatedly smear Scientology as a crazy cult by cherry-picking lines from various reviews. I objected and Cirt eventually came up with a more balanced "Themes" section (see article history). Were not I, a Scientologist, alert to this sort of skewing and had I not raised my voice, the section and article would still be skewed. I have tons of similar examples. I brought some to light in my evidence section. I hope that the arbitrator will forgive my sometimes sardonic tone and give my evidence due consideration. --Justallofthem (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

For what I've seen, I broadly that our articles tend to be slanted against Scientology instead of pro- or neutral. This may in part be down to the sources, which broadly adopt the same stance. However, it's one thing to reflect the sources, another to cherry-pick from them, and yet another to adopt a hostile or sceptical tone of voice when using them. Compare for instance the tone of voice in L. Ron Hubbard and the military with John Kerry's military service. also, the L. Ron Hubbard article appears to contain entire sections of original research.

One concern voiced by several arbitrators to ensure that the decision here does not hand the keys to the kingdom to one side or the other as, as with any subject, pro- and anti- editors both have a role to play in arriving at neutrality. The ideal is that they do so through courteous debate.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that using media sources alone will result in a different NPOV than using scholarly sources alone. This is a fact; it is not an endorsement of the notion that we should use either one to the exclusion of the other.

But historically, media (and primary) sources have had the upper hand in Wikipedia. The Scientology article version that was locked three months ago featured 179 cited sources; almost all of them were press or primary sources. The Way to Happiness (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is another example. Scholarly sources on this topic are available, but the article fails to cite a single one of them, instead going for newspapers and primary sources. That's not a problem that is limited to Scientology of course. Buying books costs money (I've spent several hundred pounds on scholarly books on Scientology and online library access in this topic area). But an encyclopedia that largely ignores scholarship and bases its topic treatment almost exclusively on press reports and popular culture is not my idea of an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is not journalism. Jayen466 14:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm primarily active with Christianity, so you can call me biased because of that. But I've recently proposed for the Christianity groups that we try to gather together lists of the best books on the given subjects we cover, and encourage members of those groups to read them and use them to build all the relevant articles. Doing something similar regarding this topic might help counteract the problem you point to here. I note that right now the Scientology WikiProject doesn't really have a list of books which would be useful in this matter, although I know that Gordon Melton has written on it to some depths in several of his books. Maybe that sort of thing would work for Scientology as well? John Carter (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

We drew up a list a while back [32], but I've seen little evidence since that anyone but me has actually bought any of these books or otherwise tried to access them. As for The Church of Scientology (Melton), which is used in many university courses, this is now quite well cited in the Scientology article. I don't have Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions (Jeffrey Kaplan, while calling The Church of Scientology a wonderful book, suggests one should read both in concert). I've just taken receipt of Lewis (Oxford University Press), which has essays from 20 scholars on various Scientology topics, including an introductory chapter from Melton (which is basically the first of the four main parts in The Church of Scientology (Melton)). Jayen466 15:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Melton has sections dedicated in several of his other books as well. For what it's worth, I have every intention of trying to read some of them soon, but, what with the mess of things that keeps popping up, I haven't yet had time to do so, and apologize for that. It's taken me three days or so to just sort out articles for the Christianity groups in just 10 categories, and God knows how many other categories are out there. But, as I get finished, or more likely, unendurably frustrated with that, I am going to try to do a little there myself. John Carter (talk) 15:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Nowadays via google books [33] you can access a lot of some good books' content for free. It doesn't give the entirety of most books but a fair tranche of some, enough to find reliable sources. Even if it doesn't let you read Melton, for instance, you may be able to find others who cite him.Sticky Parkin 00:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Two words, Roger: false equivalence. Whose work has been passing FAC and GAC? Durova^Charge! 19:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

That he has done good work does not mean there remains nothing left to do.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Strawman, Roger. You assert both sides are hopelessly biased, despite one editor's work consistently passing GAC and FAC where neutrality is weighed by uninvolved editors. When I point out that contradiction your reply changes the subject. Durova^Charge! 20:20, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That's perhaps because I didn't fully understand the point you were making until you've expanded it just now and assumed you'd misunderstood me. It's extremely difficult to determine neutrality on this issue, which is why it is important that admins avoid controversy. Enforcement actions by an admin who is perceived as being part of one group will be seen by the opposing group as highly controversial, and rightly so. The number of FACs and GACs they've contributed to doesn't really come into it. The aim here primarily is restore calm.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps that goes both ways. For the last year I've advised Cirt to be completely evenhanded. In many disputes what you get are warring camps where both sides are absolutely committed to keeping their numbers up, which arguably means disruptive editors don't get community topic banned or sitebanned: because fellow partisans protect them. For a year I've advised Cirt to avoid that tactic and take the high road: issue warnings to SPAs who supposedly share his POV, take them to ANI and checkuser, support motions to ban them. All that time I've promised him that in the long run it would serve him well. He's taken that advice. And now, with no obvious easy target in sight (except the Richard Rolles sock who evaded his topic ban to come here), ArbCom's guns are aimed at Cirt in the name of parity. As you are aware, Roger, I mentor people on other controversial topics. If you prove my standard advice empirically wrong, then you will force me to give two-tiered advice: no longer the unambiguous 'take the high road', but henceforward 'this is right, and I advise you to do it because it's right, but good conscience makes it necessary to disclose that it might make you Roger Davies's target if arbitration follows.' When one camp vigorously defends each other, and slings mud in unison at the fellow who has enough conscience to be evenhanded, you validate mudslinging as a tactic. It's as simple as that, Roger. Your own finding of fact admits Cirt has done no wrong. When mud gets slung, arbitrators must not apply adhesive. Durova^Charge! 21:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've told three different FA writers (all with 10+ FAs) that they shouldn't ever think that people actually like them because they are productive or anything, and that they should be prepared for the fact that they might end up being sent to the glue factory like Boxer (Animal Farm) whereas others with a few stubs might be able to go on and on. In any case, there is no need for this remedy at this stage, and well, frankly I can remember one admin who got congratulated by some arbs. He actually blocked his arbitration opponents. I guess Cirt just doesn't have the political clout... some other warlords swear and bully all day and nothing ever happens. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Eg, I was quite surprised that so many people were surprised about the Cla FOF last year. But then again, unfortunately many article writers are hapless and politically naive and think that people actually like them. And even if people say so, they shouldn't really believe it. If so, their supporters would engage in the same behaviour... One FA writer thought they had a lot of admirers because a lot of people used to turn up to the FACs and would make token edits to the article and support, but in reality they were just there to bask in his glory and promote themselves as "leaders" of the said wikiproject, in any case, each time the said writer's articles got attacked by extremists, the mates were nowhere to be seen nor did they ever do any meaningful writing, and someone else had to clean up for the FA writer....but somehow the FA writer thought that they were true blue friends. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't swear that much, do I? John Carter (talk) 14:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Section break: to Durova

Durova, your continued complaints are not helpful at this time. Cirt is not being targeted in the "name of parity." We've told you repeatedly that this case is being reworked. I anticipate that we will issue 20 or more topic bans, with numerous accounts on both "sides" being dealt with. Seriously. Please bear with us. Cool Hand Luke 15:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Luke, I had been keeping quiet about this for the sake of the Committee's dignity, but something you may or may not know as a new arbitrator is this was not the first case in which I presented evidence about Jossi. A year ago at the Prem Rawat case I emailed them my entire correspondence with Jossi, along with a twelve page report. To the best of my knowledge not a single arbitrator read it. While the Committee was voting to praise Jossi he proceeded to break his pledge, and forced one of Cirt's articles into formal dispute resolution one day after it had been promoted to FA. Jossi even threatened to FAR it over a single category, and I informed the Committee discreetly of this and other problems, yet they continued to vote unanimously in his praise. During the Sarah Palin case I again sent in the evidence, and so far as I know not a single arbitrator read it then either, and if I hear correctly even after I published in user space (as a last resort to avoid getting swept under the rug yet again), and after Jossi actually retired and resigned--there were arbitrators who still did not consider themselves obliged to read the evidence. These and other occurrences, over two years of thankless efforts to normalize a subject I care nothing about except in regard to seeing the site's policies properly and evenly applied, are apt to make one a little cynical. If you wish to receive good faith, please encourage your colleagues to deserve it. Durova^Charge! 19:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I know. It's very likely that I would have voted to desysop Jossi in one or both cases last year. I promise that an unambiguous finding on that issue will be passed; I supported Rlevses simple solution back in December, and actually wish we resolved it by a motion or announcement back then. (And I've also noticed Will Beback's request to get this issue out of the way for both this case and Prem Rewat 2).

I'm mostly to blame for the weird shape this case has taken; I think that I blindsided Roger with my objections. That said, the case is very much still in progress, and I don't think anyone will seem unfairly singled out when we're done. Cool Hand Luke 20:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Roger is spending a lot of time in a very complicated case that has a lot of evidence submitted. Let's not fry the egg before it's laid. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Cirt finding continued

I am confused: the proposed finding of fact on Cirt states: "From careful examination of the submitted evidence, the committee concludes that, since his request for adminship in September 2008, Cirt does not appear to have deliberately violated policy and/or deliberately misused administrative tools.". So why the need to have some enforceable decision about him? He did nothing wrong and thus should be restrained??? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I must admit I'm puzzled by this too. If there is no wrongdoing, where does the need for an enforcement measure come from? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the need to have a remedy reminding an admin not to use the tools on a topic where he has an involvement if there hasn't been a problem in the past. The principle of not using tools where there's a conflict is well-covered in Wikipedia:Administrators and is virtually a founding principle of the project. This seems to be an unnecessary remedy.   Will Beback  talk  20:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

There may have been concerns regarding Cirt's objectivity in Scientology-related articles prior to adminship, but since then, he's showed the type of levelheadedness and professionalism that we expect from any administrator. The community believed that he had reformed his old edit-warring ways (c.f. successful RfA), and since he has not abused the community's trust, as demonstrated by the Arbitration Committee's own FoF4, he should not be penalized. What's the point of editing if a black cloud looms over your head for something you haven't done in nearly two years? I think the committee should take into consideration Cirt's exercise of good judgment and simply assume good faith. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 20:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not about good faith but univolvement. Cirt has interacted with many many editors in this topic and edited a great many of its articles. Because of this and the likely ensuing ruckus, Cirt is not the best person to be imposing discretionary sanctions.  Roger Davies ^talk 11:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Roger, I think this is a faulty reasoning. We may as well caution Cirt not to vandalize pages, stalk editors, be a troll and try to hack Wikimedia servers to take over the world. He hasn't done any of that - just like he hasn't abused his admin powers - so why not warn him about everything we can? He has done nothing wrong, no cause for any remedies or enforcements. The only purpose they'd serve is to allow his opponents to selectively cite the outcome of this arbcom, ignoring the "innocent fof" and saying "look, he was warned!", implying to neutral observers that "he must have been guilty!". Such mud-sticking is something to be avoided at all cost - see also my essay on that. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There can be no doubt that Cirt was once an edit warrior, but this was long in the past. Agreeing with Nishkid64 and others above, since his mentorship, he has reformed and followed the rules diligently. He has asked for neutral opinions when he is in disagreements with other editors, and his articles themselves have been professionally written and neutral. The committee has found that Cirt has not abused his administrator tools in the area in which he is most active. I therefore join others in asking the committee to trust Cirt to act properly with the tools in the future. He has not abused this yet, and therefore a formal sanction is not the best way to go, in my opinion. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I also do not see any real reason to single out Cirt as regards his use of admin bits. I do believe that Cirt is a highly POV editor (not admin) in the Scientology, cult, and NRM articles and has "serially breached policy to forward his POV" on numerous occasions in numerous ways even since his RFA. But that is as an editor, not an admin. I think that Cirt has demonstrated that he cannot easily edit alongside a Scientologist in a collegial fashion. But Cirt has demonstrated an ability to adapt so perhaps he can do better there. Certainly, however, Cirt should be subject to any final decision affecting POV editors. --Justallofthem (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a matter of assuming good faith that he's changed, the decision is discussing his use of admin powers, but the finding of fact says in that regard he has never done anything unduly wrong with them; we don't have to WP:AGF- all the evidence shows he hasn't misused them. Sticky Parkin 00:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• It is strange to have a finding of fact that Cirt did nothing inappropriate and then a decision that he should not use administrative tools in the area (that I assume blocking obvious sockpuppets, semiprotection of articles under concentrated meatpuppet attack, blocking vandals). I think it is grossly unfair and counterproductive. Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• I think it would be helpful if the proposing arbitrator could explain the rationale behind this proposal. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a great misunderstanding here. This proposal merely applies involved to the whole topic for the imposition of discretionary sanctions alone. This policy does not prohibit an involved admin from using the tools but limits such actions to essentially uncontroversial ones. The last thing this topic needs is unnecessary controversy. Cirt has already said that he has no problem abiding by WP:UNINVOLVED so I do not understand why it should be an issue at all if, for clarity and simplicity, it applies discretionary sanctions throughout the topic. It could, I suppose, say instead that "for the avoidance of doubt, Cirt is not an uninvolved administrator for the purpose of enforcement of the discretionary sanctions" but that really is all it is about.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

If you believe that Cirt will follow WP:UNINVOLVED, why single out Cirt by formally asking them to follow WP:UNINVOLVED? We often pass resolutions to formally instruct editor to follow policy only when there is some doubt. This resolution may incorrectly signal to observers that there are doubts about Cirt, when there are none. We all understand that Cirt is too involved to apply discretionary sanctions. What might be useful would be if you made a general statement about the interaction between WP:UNINVOLVED and discretionary sanctions covering all administrators, not just Cirt.

My only involvement in Scientology has been some minor editng to Keith Henson. I'd like to know whether I am allowed to use administative tools in this area. In the past I have refrained from doing so, except to enforce clearcut WP:BLP matters. Some general guidance might be helpful. Jehochman ^Talk 12:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Cirt made his commitment to WP:UNINVOLVED after the proposal was posted in the Enforcement section. But otherwise Cirt is a special case: the long and colourful history within the topic; the wide number of articles edited; and the focus of so much criticism (not all of it unfounded). It seemed appropriate to draft something specific concerning him, both to avoid accusations of generally vacuous vanilla/milksop (milquesop?) proposals and to avoid further drama. The fact remains that, as it is unlikely that all his critics will be banished forever, it would avoid triggering clamour if the tools weren't used in inappropriate areas. It is possible, when I've finished ploughing through diffs, that one or two other administrators made be mentioned in findings of fact and that too may have implications on the Enforcement section.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I just find it odd that a voluntary pledge must be followed up by a formal sanction. Has Cirt ever used the admin tools in the area of Scientology, anyway? As administrators, we should all refrain from using the tools in our places of special interest as a matter of course, to prevent conflict of interest. He has already said that he would refrain from taking action in a partial capacity, and he has refrained from using admin tools in that area as well, so I believe a voluntary decision not to use them would be easily obtainable. Only if that trust is abused should a formal sanction take place, in my humble opinion. PeterSymonds (talk) 16:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You've got the order the wrong way round. Cirt's offer came after the draft proposal appeared. The enforcement proposal was posted at 18:58, 16 March 2009 and Cirt's offer followed at 19:11, 16 March 2009.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Nevertheless my point about the preference for a voluntary pledge rather than an enforced pledge still stands. I still believe this is preferable. PeterSymonds (talk) 19:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Be reasonable, Roger. Your first post to the page explicitly cleared Cirt of any wrongdoing regarding use of the tools 23:49, 13 March.[34] No one could have supposed you would follow up with this contradictory remedy three days later: 18:58, 16 March.[35] Why this insistence? You appear to be blaming Cirt for failing to read your mind. Durova^Charge! 20:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this assuming bad faith and saying guilty until proven innocent? Cirt has done nothing wrong, so why caution him on that? He stated himself he is involved and would never use the admin position in this conflict. If he ever does use it, then we can discuss it. Speculating on whether he will do so and trying to have remedies in the case is just a big exercise of bad faith and mud slinging. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:20, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

He would "would never use the admin position in this conflict"? Then why are so many people so staunchly opposed to him being barred from an area where he supposedly never uses his bits?

The truth is that he has intervened. Several times. As far as I know, he hasn't used the tools controversially, but what you say is flatly false. This finding is about the appearance of a conflict, and I'm ambivalent about it. Cool Hand Luke 17:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Please cite your evidence. Currently, the arbcom fof contradicts you. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

He protected Eugene Ingram at 20:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC) and List of Scientologists at 10:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC) ([https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=Cirt&page=&year=2008&month=9 protection log).  Roger Davies ^talk 20:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The examples Roger cites are where Cirt salted an attack article against a Scientologist, and semiprotected a list of Scientologists to protect it from BLP attacks, both of which actions were reinstated by other administrators. At the start of this thread, Roger, you asserted this dispute is hopelessly polarized. What POV do you accuse Cirt of pushing? Are you sanctioning him for defending Scientology? Durova^Charge! 22:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, this isn't a sanction. More importantly, this whole case is in flux. The finished remedies may not resemble what's currently posted. Roger said that this would be reviewed when everything else is updated.

It's interesting to note that Cirt substantially wrote a prior version of that attack BLP. (admin link) It's encouraging that his views on it have changed (he endorsed deletion at the DRV). Cool Hand Luke 22:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This sanction is not a sanction in the way that guns are not guns. When gun runners in the United States cross state lines what they transport are not guns but gun parts, which get reassembled and deployed after transit. The proposal does not rearm mudslingers with mud; it supplies soil. They can add water and throw. Durova^Charge! 00:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What part of the finding contradicts me? Let me repeat—he has use his tools in the topic of Scientology several times, but I am unaware of any controversial use. The finding of fact only says he has not "deliberately misused administrative tools." If you think that any use of the tools in Scientology is misuse, then you would support this enforcement proposal.

The question is whether it would be best for him to avoid the use of tools in this topic. Cool Hand Luke 19:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In a comparable matter, Jossi made a pledge to avoid editing Prem Rawat-related articles due to his financial conflict of interest.[36] This was after he'd already made extensive edits to the topic. The ArbCom commended Jossi for making the voluntary pledge.[37] Perhaps a similar approach would be helpful here - endorsing Cirt's pledge to not use the tools on this topic.   Will Beback  talk  19:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it might well be ... Recent events (much new evidence and some new directions) have meant the PD is on the back burner until the rest of the FOFs are ready. I'll look at it then. Promise.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a much preferable wording. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In every way more appropriate. But more sedately phrased than the effusive praise of Jossi in the prior case, please. Durova^Charge! 20:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Cirt's admin acts in Scientology

Piotrus denies that Cirt has ever used the tools in Scientology. That's not the case. This list is not exhaustive, but I've tried to list blocks involving Scientology editors:

• Block of 174.151.255.207 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Mar 2 - clear anti-Scientology BLP vandal
• Block of 65.255.206.22 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Oct 21 - ?
• Block of 65.160.148.200 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Oct 23 - Anonymous editor/school block
• Block of 87.194.104.214 (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Nov 25 - clear anti-Scientology vandal
• Block of Scientology (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Oct 21 - user name issue
• Block of Spiegl (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Dec 2 - anti-Scientology vandal
• Block of TaborG (talk · contribs · logs · block log) Oct 30 - pro-Scientology SPA
• Protection of Eugene_Ingram - prevent recreation of anti-Scientology attack page. Interestingly, Cirt substantially wrote a previous version of this article.[38]
• Protection of List of Scientologists - clear anti-Scientology vandalism

If anyone thinks that these or other admin acts were inappropriate, please produce evidence. Cool Hand Luke 22:49, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this, I will add it to my evidence. Cirt (talk) 22:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Scientology-related_admin_actions_by_Cirt. Cirt (talk) 23:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I am double checking to find anything more. My sum total of admin actions in general amount to about 1,191 blocks and 193 page protections, it is a lot to go through with a fine-toothed comb. Cirt (talk) 23:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see that, User:OngoingHow. I got the contribution histories of all the accounts you blocked on my computer and searched for Scientology terms, but I missed that one, which only edited Chanology. Cool Hand Luke 23:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the block of OngoingHow (talk · contribs), please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Scientology-related_admin_actions_by_Cirt, specifically Talk:Project_chanology#Latest_sock_disruption and related users identified by Checkuser Jpgordon Abusing multiple accounts: DavidYork71 and Checkuser Nishkid64 checkuserblock: DavidYork71 as socks of banned user DavidYork71 (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 00:08, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything there that's controversial. I am active in Poland-related topics, I ban vandals, I protect articles... so? That's what admins do. Has he ever done so in a way that would benefit him in a dispute? No? Right, let's move on. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Generally, yes. The only one that raises my eyebrow is the block of TaborG. In subsequent edit wars, Cirt reinstated highly questionable material into the lead of a BLP. That might lead to an improper appearance, even if there was no impropriety in fact. Cool Hand Luke 23:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

As noted at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Scientology-related_admin_actions_by_Cirt, TaborG was warned up to a final warning by admin J.delanoy, [39]. And the block of the user 174.151.255.207 (talk · contribs) that vandalized the article David Miscavige was for quite obscene vandalism and page-blanking - he replaced the page with obscenities [40],[41] [42], [43]. Cirt (talk) 23:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I know the IP block was a good one; that's why I noted it as a BLP vandal. It's interesting that you more frequently use your tools to curb anti-Scientology vandalism. Cool Hand Luke 23:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, and thank you for noting that and pointing it out. Cirt (talk) 23:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I've posted evidence regarding the TaborG block. [44] Jayen466 00:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

In no way am I advocating the position of hindsight, but it is also interesting to note that the user in question later turned out to be related to a number of similar checkuser-confirmed proxies. PeterSymonds (talk) 00:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

These seem quite uncontroversial. It is not COI to protect a page that is being hit by heavy anti-Church vandalism (although my personal preference is to report to WP:RFPP; protection can always be a touchy issue, especially in controversial topics). A block against a BLP vandal is not COI; it is merely common sense. I see the potential problem, but I see no actual issue with these actions. PeterSymonds (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean WP:UNINVOLVED, not WP:COI. I've just posted it and asking if anyone has any contrary evidence. I've not seen any. Cool Hand Luke 23:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

We stay uninvolved to prevent possible COI, for one thing. In my opinion they are quite similar. I also wasn't aware you were asking for contrary evidence; you merely asked if anyone saw a problem with them. I do not. PeterSymonds (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) If Cirt hasn’t misused the tools, then advising him to refrain from misusing the tools is decidedly redundant and unnecessary. The proposed remedy is vulnerable to misuse by persons who may wish, for political reasons, to create an impression in the community that the Committee faults his administrative judgment. --Filll (talk | wpc) 03:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

He isn't asked to refrain from using the tools only to recuse from enforcement of sanctions. As I have yet to find a Scientology article that Cirt (or prior accounts) hasn't edited in some form or another, this is entirely reasonable. The idea is to provide the bright line which is missing in WP:UNINVOLVED and which several admins have asked for. In any event, this particular piece of advice is likely to be revised once ArbCom enquiries (which are on-going and extensive) are complete. Likeliest at the moment is that it will be broadened to include other admins.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it smart to single him out?--Filll (talk | wpc) 14:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Where? In the controversial "exoneration" FoF section? Or in the "Enforcement section?  Roger Davies ^talk 12:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:OR articles

I've added L. Ron Hubbard and the military to the list. This is an article that is featured very prominently on Portal:Scientology. It is heavily reliant on OR, citing primary sources and privatecorrespondence. Jayen466 10:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've cited that article elsewhere. Striking amounts of OR in it. It's a monument to SYN in this general outline:

1. Claim by COFS and/or Hubbard.[cite]
2. Primary document of Hubbard's words tending to undermine 1.[cite to unpublished letter]
3. Primary document from one of Hubbard's associates or critics tending to undermine 1.[cite to unpublished deposition]
4. Repeat 1-3.

Curious about who wrote it. Most of it seems to have been spun off the main article. Cool Hand Luke 19:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyeverybody seems to have been the primary author, judging by the article history. It shouldn't be too difficult to fix this article, though; a lot of the material is covered by reliable secondary sources. One thing I'd caution against, though, is a crude "no primary sources" approach of the kind favoured by Jayen, which has no support in Wikipedia's policies. As WP:PSTS indicates, primary sources are not disallowed; what's disallowed is making "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources". It's completely normal to use primary sources in a completely descriptive capacity - e.g. census figures, volcanic events, biographies. To quote WP:PSTS again: "a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." As long as this rule is followed, there shouldn't be a problem. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I know. The rule has not been followed here. It's almost all synthesis. As I said, the article history is not sufficient because most of this material predates the article. Cool Hand Luke 19:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I presume it's been spun off L. Ron Hubbard, which if I recall correctly does have a nucleus of content on this. But the expansion/synthesis seems to have been done since the spinning off. It certainly goes into a lot more detail than was present in the parent article. Just to expand on one point - Jayen has consistently taken a very crude "no primary sources" line, even when the sources in question are being used entirely legitimately. There should be no objection to using (for instance) the Church of Scientology's website to describe - not interpret - statements that it makes about Hubbard's war service, any more than there should be about using the US Navy's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships to source descriptive statements about the vessels on which Hubbard served or the British Admiralty's command paper German, Italian and Japanese U-Boat Casualties during the War: Particulars of Destruction to source descriptive statements about enemy submarine casualties. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I know, but in this case, the article is not much more than original analysis from primary sources. This is straightforward OR, whatever Jayen's alleged deficiencies elsewhere are. Cool Hand Luke 20:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Chris, one more time: Spidern, myself and a number of other editors agreed a while back that it would benefit the Scientology article and the working climate there if we did without primary sources. We wanted to get away from citations to Scientology websites, Hubbard's books, ex-Scientologists' unpublished affidavits, etc., as well as unpublished OR on anti-Scientology websites. Neither Spidern nor myself said that eschewing primary sources was a policy issue: we simply said, there are lots of secondary sources – we should use them and leave off contentious primary sources.

However, as soon as we are talking about WP:SYN, i.e. adding unsourced analysis and commentary on primary sources, this is a policy issue. Jayen466 20:17, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The article is full of analysis and unsourced commentary on these primary sources.

In addition, some of the cited sources don't appear to back up what's cited to them. Example: "He continued to draw disability pay for arthritis, his ulcer, and conjunctivitis for years afterwards,[29][30][31][32] long after he claimed to have discovered the secret of how to cure these ailments." The documents bear 1946 and 1947 stamp dates, predating Hubbard's first publications on Dianetics by some time. See WP:SYN. Jayen466 20:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, and it needs fixing. I don't dispute that. Taking a crudely reductionist approach of the kind that you've previously advocated, which has no basis in policy, isn't the way to do it, though. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Please note Spidern's reference to the "consensus against primary sourcing" in this post of his from January. I had actually had rather high hopes for that voluntary consensus to hold; it seemed a good way forward to sidestep the more contentious issues and concentrate on the middle ground.

And if you have time, perhaps you could set about fixing the article we were talking about here. Jayen466 20:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to sort out that article. As for the comment you cite, consensus doesn't override policy: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." (WP:CON) -- ChrisO (talk) 20:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not. Primary sources are disfavored on Wikipedia generally, and this project apparently just made an agreement that they're more trouble than they're worth for this topic. Projects often find consensus on things that are not policy. At long as they don't contradict policy, these sorts of resolutions can be helpful. If they had agreed to the opposite—that only primary sources can be used—then there would be an actual conflict with policy. Cool Hand Luke 20:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The key word there is "apparently". I'd like to see a link to this consensus discussion. Given Jayen's previous misrepresentation of consensus, I'd prefer to see what was actually said and whether it holds up to scrutiny. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Consensus developed over a period of time. Individual editors' statements that primary sources should not be used: [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] Some relevant discussion page sections: [55][56][57][58] Jayen466 22:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's have a look at those discussion page sections you mention:

• Here, the discussion is based on a false premise - GoodDamon's assertion that "Wikipedia:No original research is an official policy, and primary sources are to be avoided per that policy". WP:NOR says nothing of the sort. I've pointed out above what it does say. It's true that other editors agreed with GoodDamon, but it's clear from the (very brief) discussion that none of them spotted the mismatch between his assertion and the actual policy.

• Here the discussion seems to focus on "dubious primary sources" - i.e. poor quality sources - not whether primary sources should be used per se. I agree that poor quality sources shouldn't be used, but that's a different issue from the question of whether primary sources should be used in general.

• Here the discussion focuses on one particular class of primary sources, namely court documents. There are particular problems with affidavits which I agree makes them generally unsatisfactory as a source, but I don't believe the same can be said of judgments and statements by courts. Note that we have literally hundreds if not thousands of articles about, and sourced to, court judgments. We routinely and systematically use court documents as sources, which is fine if they're being used as WP:PSTS requires.

• I really can't believe you had the nerve to cite this discussion and not mention what followed. You asserted that A Piece of Blue Sky was a primary source and an "insider account", using this claim to justify the book's removal as a source. A couple of other editors, going by what you had asserted, agreed with you. I demolished this specious claim here and demonstrated that you had completely misrepresented the book. You admitted at that point that you had not actually read the book; GoodDamon, who had agreed with you previously, said "If ChrisO's description of it is correct -- and I have no reason to doubt him -- then cutting references to the book from the article is unsupportable with current policy." Your conduct here was tendentious to say the least, as Martin Poulter has rightly stated in evidence. The consensus you obtained was based on a misrepresentation and it evaporated as soon as the misrepresentation was brought to light.

There seems to have been a misunderstanding among a number of editors, yourself included, about exactly what is permitted in terms of primary sourcing. To put it simply, a consensus based on faulty understandings of policies or sources is not a valid consensus. I am entirely in favour of editors on a Wikiproject agreeing on some rules of engagement, but not on the basis of misinterpreting some of Wikipedia's most basic policies, or on the basis of editors misrepresenting sources. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

If I had known the book better to begin with, I might have argued otherwise – as it was, I went by the description of the book in scholarly sources, which describe it as "autobiographical" and "bitter" and refer to Atack as an "ex-Scientologist" and "anti-Scientology activist". I believe we should be careful in using polarised sources. At any rate, please note that as far as I am aware none of the relevant content that was cited to Atack was deleted – it was either covered by other sources present, or resourced. Jayen466 12:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Also added to evidence: [59] The allegation is sourced to this article in this publication (Radar (magazine)). I'd appreciate some feedback from arbitrators as to whether inserting this kind of allegation cited to this kind of source is in line with our BLP policy, or not. Jayen466 17:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I have presented my analysis of that entry elsewhere. Hopefully others will voice an opinion. --Justallofthem (talk) 18:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Funk

Do you smell something rotten? How about we bury it, and put up a tombstone? Jehochman ^Talk 21:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Hit on the head with sticks

Humour? From Arbcom? I think my head might just explode. 198.161.174.194 (talk) 15:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the text "Parties ... will be hit on the head with sticks ... until the situation improves" is entirely inappropriate in an Arbitration Committee decision.  Sandstein  22:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

People are always saying we should follow precedent, but they never actually like it when we do. :( Cool Hand Luke 00:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Which case did you get this from anyhow? You mentioned it was an old one.  Roger Davies ^talk 15:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Mackenson suggested it from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar 2#On notice. I agree that it might seem inappropriate, but I agree that uninvolved admins should be able to enforce the spirit of this decision on an as-needed basis. Cool Hand Luke 16:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Who said it's humour anyway? I think it's quite a fitting remedy. ;) ~ mazca ^t|c 10:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It should make life a bit more interesting over at Arbitration Enforcement too. It might be a good idea to indicate just how frequently and forcefully these people should be hit, however, as some people might have a tendency to get a little carried away. John Carter (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It should perhaps also specify the weight of stick to use. And balsa, may be, for a first offence.  Roger Davies ^talk 15:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

What would you have to do to get hit with a caber toss weight stick?198.161.174.194 (talk) 16:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Get elected to ArbCom. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I just keep thinking of the monty python skit...."and the old ladies are hit about the head with sticks..." Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Concern around 'technical' remedy in "Editors Instructed"

Remedy B of Editors Instructed states: (B) To edit only through a conventional ISP and not through any form of proxy configuration;

My concern is that the technical nature of this remedy may not be understood by a significant number of Wikipedians. I don't feel that wording of this remedy is conducive to the stated aim of Wikipedia Foundation to make Wikipedia more accessible and friendly to non IT technically literate editors. I fully understand and agree with the need for this constraint, however feel that the onus should not be placed on the individual editor to ensure technical compliance with this remedy.

It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where someone may inadvertently fall foul of this remedy; an example is someone logging on to Wikipedia from their hotel room in the evening whilst traveling and inadvertently edit through a proxy server. In order to comply with this remedy requires having a conceptual understanding of what a proxy server is, and I feel that this is an excessive onus to apply to every editor.

I think it would be safer to have wording around prohibiting the deliberate obfuscation of IP addresses (or user identity), and thus potential infringements could be assessed on a case by case basis. For example, a proxy server IP address resolving to a known hotel ISP could be considered in a different light from that of a proxy service usually associated with sophisticted tunnelling based IP obfuscation. --Savlonn (talk) 12:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Double Votes

Roger Davies, you need to review your votes. You voted for and against one of your re-written proposals. 198.161.174.194 (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Now fixed.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Tilman

Wow this is funny. I see on the project page that I should be banned from editing scientology, despite not having done anything on the topic for over a year.

It is also false that I have a "single purpose account". The "evidence" shows that while I have focused a lot on scientology, that I have also edited in many other fields. If this is the way fact researching is done by an "arbitrator", it doesn't serve much purpose to waste time contesting a decision so obviously made long before. --Tilman (talk) 08:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

And yet and yet, your very last edit was to Talk:Xenu's Link Sleuth, a program "written by Tilman Hausherr" and "named after Xenu, the Galactic Ruler from Scientology scripture". Nevertheless, I've removed the "single purpose" from the FOF. Roger Davies ^talk 09:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

... and your argument is what, exactly? --Tilman (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Minor fixes

1. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#Shrampnes and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#Shrampnes_topic-banned_and_restricted -

   within subsection headers and subsections, should be "Shrampes"

2. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#Fahrenheit451topic-banned -

   within the subsection header, should be a space, but the username is spelled correctly there. Within that subsection, typo, should be "Fahrenheit451"

3. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#Hkhensen_topic-banned -

   within subsection header, should be "Hkhenson"

4. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#Justallofthem_topic-banned -

   within subsection, should be " Justallofthem". Also, "and the other account is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia.", should be changed to plural: "and the other accounts are indefinitely banned from Wikipedia." - there are (at least) 2 other accounts and 9 other IPs Justallofthem has used, per Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Justanother - and many of these IPs and one of the accounts listed at the checkuser case page were used to evade a block.

Cirt (talk) 09:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I'm very poor at picking up my own typos.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome. I assume that remedies stating user(s) are restricted to one account also would inherently restrict them to not use IP address(es) to circumvent this restriction? It might be helpful if this were explicitly stated, as it has happened in the past. Cirt (talk) 10:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

[60] - This change looks good. Cirt (talk) 11:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO findings of fact

Roger has made a number of fundamental errors of fact here in his findings of fact concerning myself:

• Barbara Schwarz: I removed a speedy deletion request because the article was not eligible for speedy deletion; it had already survived no fewer than four AfDs [61], [62], [63], [64], all of which resulted in keeps. WP:CSD states that "If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it may not be speedily deleted." I reverted this edit per WP:SELFPUB; the source was an autobiographical statement by the subject of the article, the authorship of which was publicly acknowledged and undisputed by any party. In such circumstances, Usenet is a perfectly viable source, and is used in other articles under the same limited conditions (see e.g. Linux#References, which cites Usenet posts by Linus Torvalds).

• I don't think there's any evidence of edit-warring regarding Neil Gaiman. Certainly, none has been presented on the evidence page or in the workshop. The edit which I reverted at [65] is by a sockpuppet of the infamous User:ColScott, who is under an indefinite ban for serial harassment of Wikipedians. Banned users and their sockpuppets are not allowed to edit in the first place. As the article talk page discussion shows, I've always engaged in a good-faith effort to source this article properly and have always rejected unreliable sourcing; see Talk:Neil Gaiman#Policy reminder, Talk:Neil Gaiman#Possible reference found, Talk:Neil Gaiman#Scientology redux and Talk:Neil Gaiman#Neil Gaiman is not a Scientologist. I'm not sure what Roger means by an "unflattering" reference - NPOV requires an individual's life to be documented neutrally, whether or not a particular episode is "unflattering". (Does this imply that we should only write "flattering" BLPs?)

• I did not create Oxford Capacity Analysis - it was started by User:Vivaldi in July 2005 [66]. My first edit to it was in September 2006, specifically to remove my own work as a non-reliable source.[67] I rewrote the article in January 2007 with a much broader range of sources - none of them being anything authored by myself.[68] I honestly have to wonder whether Roger has read the article history - his finding here bears no relation to reality. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

On a more general note, why aren't these findings of fact being posted to the Workshop page first? (where "Arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments.") It seems very unsatisfactory that we are being forced to comment on proposals here rather than in the Workshop, particular when (as I've documented above) there are major factual issues at stake. We are not being given a fair chance to discuss these findings. Roger, could you please move your proposals to the Workshop page for the time being so that editors can respond? The workshop is meant to be for everybody, not just for non-Arbitrators. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I must say I'm pretty shocked at this. So, there was a case where ChrisO (and others, apparently) was never even mentioned on the case page, never even mentioned in the evidence page, and never even mentioned in the workshop page, for four months. Then he is suddenly added as a party by an arbitrator, on the grounds that something "has come to light" but without saying what that something is. And then he is suddenly presented with a "proposed decision" against him, without even having been given an opportunity to comment on what he's being charged with? Evidently, somebody has been plowing through "evidence" against him in camera. And here we can see just why we prefer having evidence discussed publicly and what the result is when it isn't: a shoddy job. Anybody can confirm at a glance that the "findings" contain blatant untruths and inaccuracies. I haven't investigated all of the diffs quoted in the proposed FoF, but I can immediately confirm that Chris is correct in objecting against at least three: (1) he didn't create the Oxford Capacity Analysis article and didn't introduce the citations of his own works there; (2) he was procedurally correct in not speedying the Barbara Schwarz article, given the prior AfDs (one may well agree, as I do, that ultimately the deletion was a good result, but that still doesn't mean you can blame an admin for sticking to standard process and "refusing" to perform it); and (3) his argument about the reliability of self-disclosed bio information sourced to usenet posts was sound.

Roger, I don't actually object against you acting as both the prosecutor and the judge here, if you choose to do so, but if you do, please do it in public and not in camera. If you want to widen such a case to consider material and persons not previously implicated by the parties themselves, then you need to not only place your proposals on the workshop first, but also your evidence, all of it, on the evidence page, so that both can be appropriately scrutinised both by the affected parties and by outside observers. Otherwise, this is very poor process indeed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

If you can both please hang fire on this, I'll sort this out soon. I was under the impression that most of the FOFs had been workshopped in one form or another. My apologies if that was not the case. I'll check it through and move unworkshopped bits across for comment.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, excuse me, but what does it mean you were under the impression that things had been workshopped? Wouldn't the normal check for that be to just read the workshop while drafting? How could you be "under the impression" people had commented on these things, when your draft shows no sign of any comments having been noticed by you? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit baffled by this as well - if they're Roger's FoFs, wouldn't he have been the one who would have workshopped them in the first place? Or have these FoFs bubbled up from the black box of the arbcom mailing list? -- ChrisO (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm baffled by the wording "ChrisO has failed to set a good example". Is there a policy somewhere that says we can be sanctioned for setting bad examples? --Akhilleus (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right! Policy talks about administrators being expected to lead by example, without specifying this should be a good or bad one.  Roger Davies ^talk 09:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

A bit of political advice: sanctioning an administrator is likely to be highly controversial. This is something that should be aired out first so that everyone can have their say. On the other hand, this case has been hanging for a very long time and needs to be resolved. Perhaps a week of discussion would suffice. Roger, can you start by posting your evidence and workshop proposals, then give everyone a chance to comment. Also, it seems a bit oddball to topic ban an established editor without them having received some sort of feedback (RFC?) or warning first. Perhaps you have some sort of exceptional evidence to support this exceptional sanction. Please explain. Jehochman ^Talk 13:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Since there is literally no evidence - I'm not even mentioned in passing on the evidence page, and when this case opened I wasn't a party to it - I don't see what basis this sanction would have. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:40, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(added) Roger, none of your proposed remedies have been workshopped. Could you please move them across too? -- ChrisO (talk) 14:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Topic banning of administrators?

I realize this may come as a fatuous question. But is it often the case that administrators are topic banned while still being allowed to remain adminsitrators? John Carter (talk) 15:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It's an academic question if there are no grounds for topic-banning in the first place. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:50, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not inconsistent to believe that an admin is a strong net positive for the project, but that he or she edits disruptively in a particular area. Serious proposals have been made to topic ban admins in the West Bank case. Cool Hand Luke 02:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you folks smoking something irregular? We don't topic ban editors, especially established editors, without at least one formal warning. Why would you treat ChrisO with less courtesy than a common POV pusher? The fact that such a finding is even proposed is scandalous. You're all off on your private list echoing each others bad ideas. You need to moot these thoughts to the community so we can give you a reality check. Then you need to listen to us. Please don't bork this case like Matthew Hoffman. Jehochman ^Talk 03:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure no one would confuse these cases; there's been plenty of time to respond here. Cool Hand Luke 05:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Luke, I presume you're referring to Kirill's proposal to topic-ban Jayjg in the Judea-Samaria case. It's a chalk-and-cheese comparison. Might I point out that in that case, Jayjg was a party to the case from the start; I was added to this case at a late date by Roger Davies; Jayjg's editing was at the centre of the Judea-Samaria controversy and is the subject of a great deal of evidence on the evidence page; I've edited very little in this topic area in the past year and am not even mentioned in passing in this case's evidence page; and most annoyingly of all, the findings of fact posted by Roger are just plain wrong. For example, he charges me with creating an article and citing my own works in it, when a moment's glance at the history shows that I did not start it and my first edit to it was to remove a citation to my own works as a non-reliable source [69]. Are we to believe that the current tranche of arbitrators can't even read an article's history? God help us all if this is representative of the quality of analysis coming out of the arbcom list. This kind of sloppiness brings the arbcom into disrepute (and I say that as someone who'd been a long-term defender of the arbcom - but not after this). For the sake of your collective credibility you need to do better than this. -- ChrisO (talk) 05:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not comparing them. In fact, I've not even commented on the merits of either case. The point is that conceptually there's nothing logically inconsistent about a topic banned admin. Cool Hand Luke 06:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, that may be the case (and I'll add that I've not commented on the merits of the Judea-Samaria case, either). But if you envisage passing sanctions on anyone, including administrators, I think it requires a considerably higher standard of evidence than has been visible in my particular case. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll be posting an alternative finding to discuss later today or early tomorrow.  Roger Davies ^talk 09:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem, Roger. With the weight of all the information you've had to go through in just this one case, I can easily imagine that if nothing else the notes can get a bit confused once in a while. And this being, as I remember, one of, if not the, first case you've taken? Many of us might have been reduced to drooling idiots by this point. (OK, I'm probably already there, but that's beside the point). Just as long as they get caught, and it looks like they have. John Carter (talk) 13:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's my first case but the way I went about it didn't help. Printout of the main stuff, plus (don't laugh) notes, highlighted bits and Post-its, with fragment drafts in Word and Notepad. I'll adopt a simpler methodology next time, probably drafting on a /Workshop sub-page.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

On the one hand, kudos for treating administrators just like any other editors. That's the way it should be. On the other hand, ChrisO shouldn't be treated worse because he's an administrator. If he's made errors, go up the ladder, the same as with any other editor. (Warn, warn, warn,...,light sanction, moderate sanction, heavy sanction.) Jehochman ^Talk 15:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Speaking generally, rather than specifically about ChrisO – given this is the fourth Scientology case in as many years, with plenty of existing warnings in the form of topic probation etc – the best we can do now is to encourage the warring parties to disengage with topic bans and so on. A situation where only the Scientologists are sanctioned is plain wrong; there are many critics of Scientology here who have helped create the present mess. As I've mentioned before, while the press is broadly sceptical/hostile towards Scientology, which informs our coverage, that's no reason to push the envelope even further with dodgy sources, original research and good old-fashioned gatekeeping. With depressing frequency, genuinely neutral editors have been squeezed out by squads of feuding partisans.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That may be so, but I reckon a warning to ChrisO would end the problem just as surely as a topic ban. Why use more force than necessary? Jehochman ^Talk 11:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Reinstating my votes

Note: I had arranged for my votes to be struck on March 23, when an unexpected emergency meant that I would not be able to log in regularly, thus I was not expecting to be available as this case appeared to be near closure. As I am now available and have had the opportunity to re-inform myself as to the facts and evidence, I am reinstating my prior votes and will complete voting on the remaining proposals. Risker (talk) 05:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment on the new findings of fact

Bravehartbear

I don't think Bravehartbear should be lumped in with the IP-sharing group. I have never noted him coordinating his edits with others in the way that is characteristic of this group.

It is clear that I'm not part of the CoS IP-sharing group. I'm in the military and I have edited multiple times from military IPs. Currently I'm stationed in Japan that puts me a continent away from this group. I have not engaged or being accused of edit warring or any incivility. On what basis is a topic ban being proposed for me? Where is the evidence that I'm a either a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet. Yes, my main interest is Scientology and most of my edits have been done in that area. But to topic ban me just because my main interest in this area seems to me extremely ridicule. First I want to request to be separated from this group and any decisions made on me should be based on my merits alone. Bravehartbear (talk) 08:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Rick Ross

Rick Ross has not edited the Scientology articles. While I doubt he would be able to edit neutrally, it seems inappropriate to give him a topic ban if he hasn't even tried. (As shown in evidence, Ross appears to have made many inappropriate edits to his own BLP, and linked to his own blog in order to call a rival cult buster a registered sex offender, but that has little to do with Scientology.)

Jayen466

As for myself, I'd like to point out that I am not "strongly focused" on Scientology, as the proposal says. I've been on WP for more than 3 years. Until last autumn I had made practically no edits to this topic area, beyond Scientology as a state-recognized religion. To date, of the 3804 edits I have made to my top ten articles, 966 are on Scientology-related topics. That is a about a quarter. 467, less than an eighth, are on Rick Ross-related articles (sorry, these are two separate topics). The overall proportion of Scientology edits in my contributions list is smaller still.

Apart from the numbers, what has been the result of my work in this topic area?

- Thanks to my 381 edits to Scientology, the article has now had a significant infusion of neutral scholarly material, previously almost entirely absent. The works of David G. Bromley, Douglas E. Cowan, J. Gordon Melton, Jacob Neusner, James R. Lewis and other reputable scholars are now cited. For the past month or so, the Scientology article has been the most stable it has been in ages. While I was on a 10-day wiki-break earlier this month, there was not a single edit to it. Given that this article is viewed by 7,500 people a day, I am hopeful this is a sign that the article, while still vastly improvable, has found its feet.

- The Scientology in Germany article, cited in Roger's proposal as evidence against me (based on a single diff!!), is coming along well thanks to my work, as attested to by two GA reviewers. See recent comments on the talk page. This work represents 344 edits to date, all carried out in the last few months. Even at the time Voxpopulis (talk · contribs) a.k.a. Semitransgenic (talk · contribs), a long-time hackler of mine, made his complaint here, the article was expressly lauded for its NPOV presentation by Mattisse (talk · contribs). I am hoping to resubmit it for GA shortly, now that the other GA reviewer seems to be reasonably happy with the article as well.

Rather than being told that I am "focused on Scientology", I would appreciate someone acknowledging that I have invested considerable effort in making a useful contribution to an area that has long suffered huge problems here – much to the consternation of my family who think I am nuts to waste my time and energy on this topic.

Comment - I am aware that any statements I might make can be seen as being potentially biased. Having said that, I have to agree that Jayen466 has been remarkably focused on developing the material related to Scientology in a reasonable way based on independent reliable sources. I would be very disappointed if one of the few editors who has worked to develop the content based on independent reliable sources were to be sanctioned for doing what good wikipedia editors are supposed to be doing. John Carter (talk) 15:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Jayen466 15:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• [70] Thanks Roger, I appreciate it. But one of the evidence links you give does not refer to edit-warring at all. The other two cite one (1) article edit each to Scientology in Germany. And the fourth link is about Rick Ross, an article that does not even mention Scientology in its text. Jayen466 21:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Steve Dufour

The only involvement by Steve Dufour that I can recall having been noted here was in the David Miscavige edit war. I thought he was the good guy in that, so I am surprised to see him, apparently, criticised for deleting the information others here are being criticised for having inserted. Jayen466 15:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Steve Dufour also made many edits to the deleted Schwarz article. From what I can tell, he was heavily involved in removing BLP violations. It seems as if he agreed to quit editing Scientology articles, but it's not clear to me how that happened. Cool Hand Luke 15:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he did make good edits to Schwarz: I'm not clear why he was topic-banned either.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

A good guy whose AFD of Xenu was speedily closed. Nominating a featured article for deletion? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xenu (second nomination) Two users at the AFD called it a WP:POINT violation. Of course that occurred over two years ago. Durova^Charge! 16:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't honestly think though that this was our finest FAC.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, Steve's interest in the Scientology articles came about because of his personal relationship with the subject of an attack article and his agreement to help her get the article removed. After some unsuccessful attempts at that he took an interest in the "work" of the critics of Scientology on the Scientology articles as a whole and he worked a bit to counter their incessant skewing of the articles toward mockery and criticism of Scientology. He added some balance to the mix. At some point, Steve stated that if his friend's article was removed then he would stop editing Scientology articles. Once the article was removed he kept to that promise. As far as I know he has no topic ban other than his self-imposed one and deserves none. --Justallofthem (talk) 17:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There's stuff in his talk page history about a deal being struck and it fits in with the admin activity.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, if I ever knew the back story to that offer by Steve, I forgot it. I seem to remember some issues with WP:POINTINESS. --Justallofthem (talk) 17:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes riding a hobby horse long after it's dead. (Although, he might have had a point if this was while Wikipediatrix was breeding non-notable, un-referenced articles off in the dark corners.) AndroidCat (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Justallofthem

Just noticed the proposed "remedy" on me - topic ban for one year. Couple of points to make:
1. I invite the arbitrators to review my mainspace edits in the Scientology series and see if anything done in mainspace over the course of almost three years here justifies that. I stand behind every edit I have made (barring a few newbie missteps) in mainspace and feel that I have maintained NPOV.
Justanother (talk · contribs)
JustaHulk (talk · contribs)
Justallofthem (talk · contribs)
2. If I deserve a one-year break then so does Cirt. 'Nuf said.
3. Though, in either case, it sounds punitive. The point is exactly what?
4. And, finally, if I have been "harassing" Cirt and cannot act against him in the future without Arb panel approval then it is easily shown that the "harassment" has been mutual (see my evidence) and, again, a reciprocal condition should be imposed on Cirt as regards me. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

And you're still not getting the point as far as Cirt is concerned.  Roger Davies ^talk 20:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No, U. The point being that if you look at my recent activities and you look at my recent so-called "harassment" of Cirt (recent, as in since he made admin) you will see that there is not all that much that is objectionable on either of our parts - or put another way, perhaps an equal level of objectionable activity. The point is that I cannot see how your proposed treatment of me vis-a-vis Cirt reflects due consideration of either the evidence presented by myself and others or my history of article-space edits. I see your treatment of me vis-a-vis Cirt as arbitrary, uninformed, and perhaps knee-jerk. --Justallofthem (talk) 13:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Preventative or punitive?

A basic principle of Wikipedia dispute resolution is that remedies are supposed to be preventative rather than punitive. Thinking over the Steve Dufour example above, I wonder how anyone could really justify a proposal upon someone whose principal disruptive action in the topic occurred over two years ago. Early in this case I asked the Committee to consider one editor's reform. It would be remiss if I didn't ask the same thing for everyone. Of the many new names added to the case, how many of them have done anything wrong in recent memory?

About three weeks ago I protested the indefinite block of one editor whose name was being added to this case. For a short time I debated four arbitrators who were all in agreement until a discussion opened at ANI and the community's opinion went resoundingly against the block. Several people were downright angry.

Think of each of the proposals now: one by one, if ANI were reviewing trouts would probably get handed out for punitive action. Occasionally in the past the Committee has drifted away from site norms. That's never gone well in the long run. Step back and rethink this, please. Are you losing perspective? Durova^Charge! 16:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing punitive or preventative in this proposal. It is simply administrative so that everyone (steve Dufour included) knows the scope of the topic-ban, what the options for appeal/relief are, and so forth. The topic-ban is without limit of time but it could be lifted (or suspended) fairly quickly, I suspect, given the time already served, under the right conditions and with the right mentor. My personal view is Steve Dufour conducted himself with considerable restraint during the appalling Barbara Schwarz debacle and I most certainly do not see him as a right-off for future editing within the Scientology topic.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a tendency for ArbCom members to become less clueful over time as they get sucked into a huge pile of emails and other tasks that pulls them away from the community. There has to be a better way, but I am not sure what it is. Jehochman ^Talk 19:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

ANI is also criticized for being a social game.

It simply doesn't make sense to dole out sanctions exclusively for uncivil exchanges and rapid edit wars, and ANI cannot remedy more complicated situations. Our ordinary processes have failed here, and I think it's time we tried something more aggressive. Cool Hand Luke 19:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You've had a month to think over my suggestion that you recuse, Luke. Durova^Charge! 20:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Durova, sometimes I have the feeling you actually envision yourself as being in charge of the arbcom. Or at least as providing moral guidance. :) Given that the community has not elected you to such a position, is the preceding comment not a little presumptuous? Well-meaning advice, which what you wrote at the top of this section could arguably be construed as, is one thing. But this just now feels more like heckling, or undermining. It does not feel good. Jayen466 20:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If it wasn't clear before, I haven't heard any legitimate reason for me to recuse from this case, and I will not. Cool Hand Luke 15:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cool Hand Luke here. At its essence, there is little difference between the editing behaviour seen on Scientology-related pages and that seen in the "nationalistic" pages that have also come here under various guises, with the exception that there are more BLP articles and articles containing BLP information involved, so the potential for harm is greater. These behavioural issues have been entrenched for several years, and there are many, many problematic articles as a result. Risker (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a history to consider. Through spring and summer 2007 I was very concerned that Scientologist editors at Wikipedia were engaging in this site in ways that risked a much bigger PR problem than the one they were trying to fix. Nobody else was raising that warning. Events proved it right: before the case ended that actually became gained international attention; it was in newspapers of record--exactly the result I had been trying to prevent. Recusal is about avoiding the appearance of impropriety. It should be pertinent in all relevant cases, yet common sense makes it an even higher priority where the press may be interested--they do not sell newspapers by being kind. Consider that , and consider that the present case has already been in The Register.

The kid who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes wasn't trying to be popular. When the same kid points out that that the queen is forgetting her dress, do you reprimand that kid for speaking up again? Durova^Charge! 21:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Well, you could offer the queen some of your spare designer knitwear, and all would be well. :) Jayen466 21:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

That answer might depend on what the queen looks like without her clothes of course. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Durova's request that Cool Hand Luke recuse is based on her theory that, having uploaded several images relating to Mormonism to Wikipedia Commons, CHL is a SPA on that other project and that his religion will colour his ability to adjudicate here. CHL's interest in Mormon history is documented on his user page, as is his assertion that he is agnostic but raised in the Mormon faith. Cool Hand Luke inquired of his fellow arbitrators if they shared Durova's concern; none indicated that they did. Risker (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If that was the rationale for recusal I'd have to agree that it's too thin to justify it, frankly. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe that commons even has a SPA guideline. It's hard to see why it would be a red flag on that project. On Wikipedia, being an SPA is a troubling sign because it often indicates an agenda and therefore non-neutral editing. Neutrality isn't the objective of commons though: they're not building an encyclopedia. I contributed pictures of my hometown; I'm sure that many others are productive "SPAs" in this sense. Cool Hand Luke 15:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I myself can only think of two or three religious subjects which even come close to plague levels. Scientology is one of them. I hate the idea of applying it here, because so much of the material needs so much work, and there are certain parties I very definitely do not want to see disciplined here, like Jayen466, and, well, me. But I do think that this might be a case where the only way to stop the problem from spreading is some serious amputation of problematic editors. John Carter (talk) 20:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Luke was raised a Mormon and uploads images thereof to Commons and that makes him an SPA that should recuse in the West Bank - Samaria case? I guess this has something to do with Mormonism's views on Jews. Is my reading of this correct or am I missing something? I do not see grounds for recusal here. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Durova's comments are with reference to the Scientology case, not the West Bank-Samaria case. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, probably, but even with that, I still don't see recusal grounds here. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

No, nor me. I can't think of any overlap between Mormonism and Scientology. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Clean-up tags

Principle 17

17) In appropriate instances, it is permissible to place a clean-up maintenance tag on an article in order to call attention to problems with the article.

I'm not sure this makes sense to me. I could be just nit-picking but to me its saying when appropriate to do something its appropriate to do it. Is there a way to word this so that it doesn't seem so circular? To say the sun rises at sunrise doesn't seem helpful to me. 198.161.174.194 (talk) 15:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Question from Mattisse

• In a peer review I noted what I thought was POV regarding Scientology in an article. One of the major editors, User:Cirt immediately attacked me and started an An/I thread against me because of my comments. The article in question is Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology. Later I was told that my name had been mentioned in this Arbitration, and that was why Cirt treated me the way he did, since I have had no previous interaction with him. Is this true? Was my name mentioned in this artbitration, leading to Cirt's attack on me? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• Addendum. In addition, I learned User:Cirt had a mentor, User:Durova, who started a poll to have me supervised in my editing, based on this incident with Cirt. Is it unsafe for general editors like me to edit articles on Scientology? Please let me know what the situation is. Thanks. —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Mattisse, I mentioned you here on this page the day before Cirt posted at AN/I, under #Comment_on_the_new_findings_of_fact. Jayen466 18:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I noted on the talk page of the article that a large part of this discussion took place only recently. From what I can see, and my own admittedly limited previous contact with you, I have no reasons to question your own character. Cirt, however, has been one of the few editors who has been working seriously and regularly on the content related to Scientology, including dealing with the vandals, of which there are a distressing number. I sincerely hope that it would be safe for you or any other regular productive editor to be able to edit articles related to Scientology, because, frankly, the content needs such input. The articles are currently on probation, which might in some cases be relevant, but shouldn't be cause to dissuade good editors like yourself. John Carter (talk) 15:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The situation is that Mattisse questioned the quality of a GA that Cirt has been a co-author of, expressing her opinion that (and I paraphrase) the article took a gratuitous anti-Scientology POV and had other failings that a GA article should not have. Cirt denied this. Feeling strongly about the matter, Mattisse submitted the article for GAR, even though there was a peer review ongoing. Cirt's response was to seek administrator sanctions against Mattisse at AN/I, under the colourful heading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ani#Disruption_and_Wikihounding_by_Mattisse. I felt that was uncalled for. I came to know about the AN/I thread via Mattisse's talk page, because I was in discussion with Mattisse about my alleged edit-warring at Scientology in Germany which she was reviewing at the time the alleged edit warring occurred. Cirt's complaint about Mattisse, whom I know as an extremely talented GA reviewer, seemed totally over the top to me and motivated by pique and bad faith. I have said so, and said a number of other things besides, such as that I indeed found Durova's attempt to get Luke to recuse, a few days after Luke brought up Cirt's old POV edits, an example of "low politics" (that was Durova's expression). Jayen466 17:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would also suggest that Durova and Cirt had, for the purposes of this present topic area, best be treated in accordance with WP:MEAT. There is no discernible difference between their public positions, Durova's advocacy for Cirt is total, and there is considerable offline consultation, to the extent that evidence Durova submits under her own name has clearly been drafted for her by Cirt. Jayen466 17:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Matisse's good faith criticisms notwithstanding, what is an editor to do when the the criticizing party can offer no constructive advice on how to improve the article? When faced with criticism of selective sourcing, Cirt responded multiple times ([71], [72], [73], [74]) by stating that no further sources could be found. Matisse did not respond with additional sources in support of her argument. Instead, she resorted to critcizing the content of the book itself. Later, Cirt attempted to constructively address one concern that was brought up by Matisse, and she responded by implying that editors were unwilling to cooperate. When Cirt requested that she take his response ([75]) of her criticism in good faith, she proceeded to mischaracterize Cirt's request: "Saying an article is POV is AGF?" The dialogue between Matisse and others on this article was not constructive because Matisse consistently responded to constructive answers to her criticisms with hostility, rather than offering workable suggestions to alleviate said concerns. ←Spidern→ 18:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that when faced with criticism, there are other responses open to an editor than going to AN/I and seeking administrative sanctions for the other person. Jayen466 18:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

What about being faced with disruption and a consistent unwillingness to offer useful suggestions when their criticisms are constructively replied to? What venue would you suggest for that? ←Spidern→ 18:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Barely 3 hours passed between Mattisse making her first comment about the article and her finding a fully-formatted, paragraph-length, shamelessly ad-hominem accusation of disruption and wikihounding levelled against her on AN/I. Jayen466 19:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Apparently you missed the origin of the dispute at Talk:The Age of Reason, where Mattisse first posted at 15:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC). Awadewit (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That makes 27 hours of "wiki-hounding" then. Gee. Jayen466 21:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

If disruption was happening, then why is time even a factor? And will you please point out where the ad-hominem is in this? It's not as if this is an isolated incident, unless one is to disregard the fact that Mattisse has had three user RFCs, and that multiple unrelated editors have affirmed a pattern of problematic behavior in the past--all of it outside of the discussion which took place on this article. ←Spidern→ 00:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have been attempting to resolve that matter without raising it within the arbitration case, since things are difficult enough here already. Mattisse has a long history of useful contributions mixed with a long history of failing to assume enough good faith. Cirt asked me for advice yesterday because Jayen had followed him to an article peer review; Jayen had posted a cherry picked quote there regarding Cirt, and Jayen had failed to disclose that he too was under scrutiny in this arbitration case. I could have entered that as evidence against Jayen: instead I posted the appropriate context to the talk page, along with an offer to courtesy blank my post if Jayen modified his statement appropriately. Of course I disclosed my own role as mentor, and notified Mattisse (who had already begun to repeat Jayen's claim uncritically in other fora).

At that point I found and read an ANI thread that was already ongoing: Cirt had initiated it as a wikihounding complaint regarding Mattisse's conduct toward Awadewit. I sought amicable compromise, but Mattisse informed me that a friendly solution was not possible and specifically invited me to draft a sanctions proposal. I had participated in the most recent of Mattisse's three conduct RfCs and had been one of the most sympathetic voices there. So I drafted the mildest feasible solution: other people had been talking about a topic ban; the actual proposal was no topic ban (it authorized administrators to refactor gratuitous incivility and bad faith from her posts). The proposal is currently receiving majority support.

Unfortunately, Jayen (who had already been active at that ANI thread before I read it) promptly made several serious accusations against my motives and ethics. Mattisse has adopted his position uncritically. To the best of my knowledge Jayen has taken no prior interest in Mattisse, and he appears to be unaware of my history of impartial interaction with her (more than once I've urged her to be understanding toward Giano).

Before I posted to ANI there were already opinions at that thread that the Mattisse situation would have to go to arbitration. I've been seeking a solution to avoid that, with the result Mattisse and Jayen are expanding something approaching a conspiracy theory across multiple fora. Any suggestions from the arbitrators how to handle this? Please advise. Durova^Charge! 16:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

In my perception, you have not been seeking to resolve the situation, but to escalate it. That seems to be a pattern. It appears you enjoy the drama and the chance to observe whether some of the people you push into the firing line will actually get shot. In other words, I find the way you hang around arbitration somewhat vulture-like. C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas l'encyclopédie. ;) Jayen466 17:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment I see that the arbitrators have made the following recommendation: "The Arbitration Committee urges that knowledgeable and non-conflicted users not previously involved in editing Scientology-related articles, especially Scientology-related biographies of living people, should carefully review them for adherence to Wikipedia policies and address any perceived or discovered deficiencies. This is not a finding that the articles are or are not satisfactory in their present form, but an urging that independent members of the community examine the matter in light of the case." - I am a previously uninvolved editor who was happy to work on the article Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology, a book by the Beat writer William S. Burroughs. I enjoyed working on it because I like to write literature articles (most of the 30 or so FAs I have are on literature). However, after the attacks and drama that have ensued in the past day, I have no interest in continuing to write in this area. Mattisse arrived at Talk:Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology assuming the article had a POV and used POV sources. The entire situation spun out of control to include this ANI thread. A GAR on the article was even started by Mattisse four hours after she started commenting on the article. Other users piled into the dispute, but very little was said about the actual content of the article or its sources. I've gotten into sourcing and POV disagreements before (I've been involved in half of the Roman Catholic Church FACs), but I have never seen an escalation like this, particularly one that strayed so far from discussing the actual content of the article. If the community is unable to AGF from new editors who are working in this area and treats their contributions with this kind of contempt, I do not believe that this recommendation will be successful. Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what's happening with Jayen isn't dialog: more like encountering talking points that attempt to sway the opinions of third parties. At ANI I supposed he may have forgotten some of my evidence. But it stretches good faith to suppose he again forgot my responses overnight. These constitute pointed attacks against my integrity and character, across multiple fora. And supporting evidence (when present at all) is cherry picked. It's a sad occasion when I can't put a humorous caption to a featured image in user space, carefully restored from a badly damaged example of century old grahic art, without mischief getting construed into it. Will remove the image from user talk; awaiting further advisement from the Committee. Durova^Charge! 19:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Jayen has also been rather fast on the gun with escalation. When he removed two external links from an article without explaining why he was removing then, but giving the impression that it was because they were XenuTV links, I reinstated them and asked for a reason or rational for removing them. Rather than removing them with an explanation or taking it to the talk page, he immediately jumped to Arbitration Enforcement, and was shot down before my next login. That seemed like a massive waste of their time in an attempt to score points. I'm bemused that he added this "use of this board for drama mongering, soap boxing or attacking opponents" as evidence against me. (Yes, I did review the content of the videos afterward and agreed that the links should be removed. A descriptive edit summary could have saved a lot of bother.)

Dropping links elsewhere to this RFAR to smear "opponents" seems frequent. This one was before I was even made an involved party. AndroidCat (talk) 02:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the Mattisse issue is a separate RFAR now. Durova^Charge! 03:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Replacement of Single Purpose Account in proposals with actual Wikipedia policies

While the WP:Single Purpose Account essay is a useful general information article, it's not a Wikipedia policy or guideline. So far as I know, its only use is unofficial for tagging pop-up editors during AfDs. (I thought it was used in WP:Username policy, but I can't find it there.)

Generalized essays are good for newbie direction, but weak for decision-making. (Personal-bias declaration: It's hard to defend against a blanket charge of Single Purpose Account-ism, when that's largely left undefined.) SPA is a rough digest of several policies. Most editors will say they agree with it, but will disagree on exactly what they agreeing with. ARBCOM decisions should be grounded in the policies of Wikipedia like WP:COI, WP:NPOV, WP:SOCK, WP:NOT, etc.

And think of the admins who are going to have to enforce this RFAR for the next year or two, depending on SPA as their compass. AndroidCat (talk) 04:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

While we probably need something like this in place, I have growing concerns that SPA may be used as a cudgel to beat newbies, when all they really need is advice. I am likely to modify this remedy within the next 24 hours.  Roger Davies ^talk 02:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It can also be used as cudgel to beat longer-term editors too. :) Exactly what is "Single purpose"? Is it "only interest", "main interest", "mostly", "a lot" or "50%+1"? Top ten articles in tools like toolserver.org/~soxred93 that don't tell the whole story?

For example, my 2nd highest article with 206 edits is List of Scientologists. However, checking my own tools, at least 55 of those are for reverting vandalism ranging from silly junk to BLP issues. The actual total could be twice that since I usually tried explain why people couldn't add their math teacher or Will Smith (again) without references rather than calling it vandalism. Scientology articles, especially the main ones, are vandalism-magnets and anyone doing honest maintenance is going to find that on their SPA bill at times like this. Is that completely fair? (And no, I don't have a tool yet that can automatically separate a defacement revert from a POV-fight one.) AndroidCat (talk) 02:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I suppose single purpose means that the editor's primary raison d'etre is the topic. Interestingly, and talking of edit summaries, one thing I have noticed in Scientology is a habit of characterising dissenting or opposing edits as vandalism :) Hmmm.  Roger Davies ^talk 03:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

An accusation of vandalism is a risk play between established editors. One or the other (perhaps both) should walk away with a sanction either for WP:VANDALISM or WP:CIVIL. AndroidCat (talk) 04:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

What AndroidCat says here is not entirely without merit though. And for the record, I have seen AndroidCat revert many edits that were clearly inappropriate. That is of course even more true for Cirt – Cirt is online a lot and has reverted literally hundreds of edits that really were either just clear vandalism or otherwise clearly inappropriate. Jayen466 00:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

[dd] It looks like the WP:SPA essay is still being asked to do a policy's job—something that the editors of that article might disagree with (judging by the Talk page), and I believe that there has been at least one failed vote to promote the essay further. AndroidCat (talk) 04:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding topic ban of Jayen466

I note that there is a proposed decision to topic ban Jayen466 for a month from content regarding Scientology. Does this ban extend to developing existing articles in userspace during that time or not? John Carter (talk) 13:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question. Providing it wasn't contentious, I'd have no problem with it but I'll ask my colleagues to chip in on this too.  Roger Davies ^talk 14:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've been meaning to discuss the FoF. How does this diff quoted in the FoF illustrate I edit-warred? Jayen466 20:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO proposed topic ban

I see that Roger has decided to propose a topic ban despite the reasons I've given why such a measure would be completely unjustified and disproportionate, and he's reintroduced his FoFs despite the flaws that I and others have pointed out. So let's sum up. If you accept as accurate all of Roger's findings of fact - which I do not - then I'm proposed to be topic-banned on the basis of:

• edits and two admin actions on one article in August 2005, August 2006-October 2006 and February 2007 and August-September 2007 (not continuous editing as Roger misleadingly implies);
• blocking some of a block-evading, privacy-violating editor's sockpuppets in 2006 and 2007;
• five reversions to three articles in October 2007 and December 2007;
• adding material to one BLP in September 2006 and reverting its deletion in February 2008.

A topic ban implies (1) that I am still making problematic edits in this topic area and (2) the problems are so severe that I need to be prevented from making any further edits. Roger simply hasn't presented any evidence to support either contention. It's undisputed that I've only lightly edited in this topic area in the last 15 months. It's also undisputed that:

• I had no part in the disputes that prompted to this arbitration;
• None of the admin actions in 2007 was the subject of any dispute, warning or even any mention of inappropriateness until now;
• Everything that Roger cites or claims is old - almost all relating to 2007, nothing newer than 15 months ago;
• Roger has given no explanation of why a topic ban is necessary to prevent problems in this area now.

I can't see what a topic ban concerning events of up to three years ago is meant to achieve in the absence of any indication of continuing problems in this area. The purpose and goal of blocks and bans is to prevent continuing disruption or to change current behaviour. If you are proposing to use a topic ban as punishment for past conduct, then you're fundamentally changing the rule that the purpose of blocking or banning is prevention, not punishment. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Not to put words in anyones mouth, but it appears the behaviour you are being accused of all seem to happen after being previously admonished in RFAR case in 2006. So an argument could be made that since you have continued behaving badly since being admonished then a higher level of 'prevention' is in order due to the long term nature of your behaviour. This would put all of your behaviour in 2007 (regardless of the topic) as fair game. If what you say is true that 2008 seems to be a relatively problem free year then that should be taken into account in your favour, but unfortunately I am having trouble following all the diffs to verify that. 198.161.174.194 (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The first admonishment related to edit-warring. Roger has already abandoned his earlier claim that I edit-warred on Scientology articles and has replaced this with the incredibly nebulous "engaged in battleground editing", whatever that means - I've never seen the term used before on Wikipedia (and Google can't find any references to it either). Roger has not defined "battleground editing" so how is anyone supposed to know what that means? I'm also not surprised that you're having trouble following the diffs, since Roger's presentation of it is very misleading. The key diffs in that context are [76], [77] and [78] [79] - two reversions on two articles three days apart, two years ago. It's beyond punitive to claim that this constitutes some kind of edit warring. If Roger took that to AN/I and suggested a block I doubt anyone would take such a request seriously.

But that's actually not the key issue here. It's a simple issue. I've only substantially edited a handful of Scientology-related articles in the last 15 months. None of them has been the subject of any dispute involving me. Roger's most recent diff is from 15 months ago. Where is the evidence of any continuing problem in this topic area that needs to be addressed? Nobody at any point in this case has offered any explanation of why I need to be topic-banned. What exactly have I been doing, on which Scientology-related articles, that is causing a problem now or at any point in the last 15 months? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe you may have more success searching for the term 'Has treated wikipedia as a battleground', which would likely lead you to a sufficient explination of battleground editing. I suspect an adequete definition of battleground editing would be the use of a variety of methods (not limited to reverts) in order to push a particualar point of view, persue a real world political (or otherwise) agenda, and unnessesarily inflame areas of wikipedia in order have a wikipedia entry lend credibility to your POV or agenda. That was kind of rabling, so in other words, you have a real-world 'fight' across different venues (such as courts, political systems, etc.) and you have brought wikipedia into the fight not to build an encyclopedia, but to help you 'win' elsewhere.

My issue with following the diffs was computer related, not due to any obfuscation on Rogers part.

It also appears that your call for more recent diffs has been heard, repeated by another arb, and responded to with the addition of more recent diffs.198.161.174.194 (talk) 16:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO and Scientology

In answer to the question whether ChrisO has done any work on Scientology related topics since 2007, he worked on the article in his user space User:ChrisO/Military career of L. Ron Hubbard as recently as the 3rd of this month here, along with several earlier edits, had a few talk page edits and minor corrections on Neil Gaiman and the associated talk page in March of this year relating to Gaiman's status as a Scientologist or not, a few edits to Super Power Building in March beginning here, several edits to Talk:Scientology in February, and a few minor edits to several other related articles since the beginning of this calendar year. I didn't check for 2008, but could if such were requested. John Carter (talk) 00:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've been working on User:ChrisO/Military career of L. Ron Hubbard in specific response to concerns raised in this arbitration case about the existing Military career of L. Ron Hubbard article - which I didn't write, but which everyone agrees is unacceptably problematic. The userspace version is a complete rewrite from scratch, which is intended to replace the existing article. I was under the impression that the arbitrators were seeking to fix problems with these articles. I've also made a small number of edits and reversions of obvious vandalism in a few other articles over the last 15 months. I've already stated this above and in the workshop. But we come back to the central question here: none of these edits has been the subject of any dispute involving me (other than the brief argument with a banned sockpuppeteer on Talk:Neil Gaiman), and nobody - not even Roger - has suggested at any point that any of those edits has been problematic. Blocks and bans are supposed to address ongoing issues, but nobody has suggested that there are any ongoing issues involving me and this topic area. We have a proposed remedy without any indication of what it's supposed to cure. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The general problem here is overinvolvement, a blurring of roles, and perhaps ownership/turf issues. Your admin actions in articles you've edited in Scientology ought to have been made by an uninvolved admin. These haven't exactly come out of the blue: you've been mentioned in several past arbitration for precisely the same behaviour. What it is intended to achieve, by the way, is a levelling of the playing field to enable neutral editors to contribute productively.  Roger Davies ^talk 14:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I do not see ChrisO as deserving of a topic ban unless the intent is to punish him for past errors. ChrisO should be strongly cautioned against any further use of his admin tools in related articles and ChrisO, IMO, has a tendency toward original research but that is a blurry line. Otherwise, ChrisO is a very competent researcher and writer. ChrisO is an off-wiki critic of Scientology (prolly less active now than in the past) and has a clear POV but I no more think that should bar him from articles than I think my being an (off-wiki) Scientologist and having a clear POV should bar me. What matters is not one's POV or off-wiki activities but how one edits and I do not think ChrisO's editing behavior deserving of a topic ban. To be sure he has shown some carelessness regarding BLP and supporting the crappy edits of others but I am sure that he will be more diligent in the future. --Justallofthem (talk) 14:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Note that the above is based on my interaction with ChrisO and my observation of his editing behavior. If he has violated the terms of previous enforcement and/or dispute resolution processes then that is another matter. --Justallofthem (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

For the record, Just, I've not published anything off-wiki about Scientology for at least 4-5 years. I don't consider myself an active critic of Scientology any more - there are, let's face it, more important issues in the world today. :-) -- ChrisO (talk) 18:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It appears, from the evidence, that ChrisO is currently minorly involved in Scientology articles, so over-involvement seems a tough charge to stick. Your accusations of misuse of administrator tools include [80], a revert that sought to remove an unsourced accusation of homosexuality. In another, he makes an edit that clearly removes ridiculous POV pushing: [81]. These are reasonable uses of rollback, and are not content disputes. Certainly there is no meaningful similarity with the behavior under question in the cited Kosovo case, which, I remind you, was three years ago - rather a long time.

Your leveling of the playing field seems, based on your own evidence, to consist of topic-banning an occasional contributor whose past contributions include featured articles in the area, and who has acted judiciously and neutrally.

Right now, however, this case looks like ChrisO is being thrown under a bus as some sort of appeasement so that both sides of the issue have someone punished - a logic I assume is behind the irrelevant 8th finding that targets me, despite my utter non-involvement in the case. With all due respect, that is an inappropriate use of the arbcom. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The rollback guideline says: The 'rollback' links provided by Wikipedia's interface provide a standard edit summary of the form "Reverted edits by X to last version by Y". These should be used only to revert edits that are clearly unproductive, such as vandalism; to revert content in your own user space; or to revert edits by banned users. Reversion for other reasons should be accompanied by an explanatory edit summary, and must therefore be done by a different method. Neither of the examples you mention are vandalism, and a summary ought to have been included, referring to the talk page.  Roger Davies ^talk 15:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The edits may not have been vandalism, however the guideline you cite says "edits that are clearly unproductive, such as vandalism." Vandalism, thus, is one example. I do not think it is reasonable to suggest that an edit that amounted to "L Ron Hubbard was secretly gay," or one that removed information and replaced it with "X is pseudoscience" is not "clearly unproductive." At *best* this falls into a grey area of rollback (and frankly, it doesn't even do that.) Certainly it would be the harshest crackdown the arbcom has yet considered to topic-ban for use of rollback to remove edits of this nature. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Jeez. I just looked at the other uses of rollback. Every one of them was a revert of undiscussed removal of sourced information, or of unsourced POV pushing. That has historically been the purview of the rollback tool. Every single edit cited in that section is clearly unproductive. This is absurd! Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

We must disagree. Wiki editing is a collaborative environment and you don't improve collaboration by high-speed stifling with rollback. These edits, incidentally, are merely the Scientology ones: there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) more in other topics.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that an edit consisting of suggesting with no source that L. Ron Hubbard was secretly gay is a useful attempt at collaboration? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:19, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That particular allegation was made in a Channel 4 documentary (which is a reliable source): a transcript is here.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that before removing what appears a likely piece of vandalism via adding false scandalous information, ChrisO should have made an exhaustive search of possible sources to see if a reliable source existed, even though one was not provided? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it might just be easier to ask ChrisO directly?  Roger Davies ^talk 19:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, since nobody has asked me, let me save you the trouble: you can't read sources. The Channel 4 documentary spoke of the possibility that Hubbard's son Quentin was gay: "Quentin really was a real sweet kid. He was a real nice guy, and very soft-spoken and it was very difficult for him being Hubbard's son, and being put in a very high position, and I don't think he was that interested in it. He just wanted to be a pilot and also the fact that he was gay and that's a very tough thing in Scientology, to be gay." It says nothing about Hubbard's own sexuality, and there is no reliable source whatsoever to suggest that Hubbard was homosexual. There's no indication that the vandal had any reliable source in mind. You're also ignoring the fact that immediately before adding that comment, the vandal replaced the existing link to the official L. Ron Hubbard website with a link to an entertainment website completely unrelated to Scientology or Hubbard [82]. A few minutes earlier he had done the same thing on Tom Cruise, and a few minutes later he vandalised a BLP.[83] Still want to argue that this wasn't vandalism? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right; my apologies for the mistake. I agree that that one is vandalism and I've fixed the FOF accordingly, along with another one (the Plagiarism paragraph blanking). Thank you for the explanation.  Roger Davies ^talk 07:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger said that there might be similar edits in other topics which are relevant. It might be useful to have an indication what those other edits are. Even I, who I think ChrisO would easily admit is no friend of his, cannot see how any of these edits mentioned, in and of themselves, are necessarily grounds for any sort of sanction. If there is better evidence elsewhere, it might be helpful to see it. John Carter (talk) 16:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The underlying question is not the detail but whether on balance ChrisO is and has been pushing a point of view, consciously or otherwise.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I feel obliged to point out that many of the uses of rollback you noted were removing anti-scientology claims - the POV you are implying that he pushed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, though I'm not sure that proves much in and of itself as few editors like having graffiti daubed all over their work, even if they do have a similar viewpoint to the graffitist.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a shameful assumption of bad faith. I am beginning to feel that Roger should, at this point, seriously consider whether his obvious urge to "get" ChrisO, which seems to have been growing ever more desperate by the day, makes him still fit to provide a fair and objective judgment of this case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

No assumption of bad faith at all. It's just, in my experience, the way it works in practice. People who take a pride in their work don't like to see it destablished or diminished.  Roger Davies ^talk 11:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

No good Wikipedian likes to see articles destabilised or diminished, and there is no reason not to assume that the reverts in question were motivated by exactly that. In any case, you are contradicting yourself: by likening the reverted edits to "graffiti", you are in fact confirming they were just what the rollback tool is for: self-evidently harmful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

You've lost me there. If the graffiti is blatant vandalism or a BLP vio, of course that's what rollback is for. On the hand, loads of stuff gets added which isn't at all clear cut and just rolling it back sans edit summary is inappropriate.  Roger Davies ^talk 11:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If its badness is obvious enough to make a comparison to "graffito" spring to mind, then it is bad enough to legitimately use rollback on. If I revert someone who has put the obviously POV characterisation "pseudo-science" into the lead sentence of a contentious article like Dianetics, and in the same edit arbitrarily removed legitimate factual information about the word, then no sensible adult person needs an explanation why I'm doing it: it is, in fact, obvious. Obviousness is the criterion for rollback. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• I've had a look at ChrisO's new version of Military career of L. Ron Hubbard and left some comments here. Perhaps other editors might like to have a look at the article as well. I'm still uncomfortable with the article's editorial tone and sourcing. Jayen466 10:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this morning that Chris has requested a Milhist peer review.  Roger Davies ^talk 10:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Kafkaesque findings of fact

The latest diffs from Roger are bullshit - sorry to be so blunt, but that's how it is. He is quite blatantly trying to shore up a shaky remedy that his fellow arbitrators are questioning, by presenting "evidence" which is plain false. He misrepresents simple vandalism reverts as being part of a "content dispute". There was no "content dispute" involved with any of the diffs he cites. This diff reverted a drive-by IP editor's addition of "so therefore an Auditor can make up whatever they want to get you to pay more money to the cult." This diff reverted the blanking of a section by a new editor whose only contribution in his entire career has been that single edit. This diff reverted obvious vandalism by an editor who went on a few minutes later to vandalise a BLP, following which I blocked him for a vandalism spree (he had also vandalised Tom Cruise and had a record of homophobic vandalism - see below). And so it goes on. This is trivially obvious to anyone who looks at those diffs.

Roger also misrepresents the use of admin tools on three articles. Scientology-related articles are often subjected to anonymous vandalism - there have been regular peaks of vandalism around the time of the various Anonymous (group) anti-Scientology protests. I semi-protected Xenu twice in January and April 2008 after a wave of anonymous vandalism. I protected L. Ron Hubbard in June 2008 and Church of Scientology in July 2008 for the same reason. I was not involved in any disputes concerning those articles. In the case of Church of Scientology, it had repeatedly been vandalised by an IP-hopping vandal who had blanked it [84] ("Replaced content with '==You might as well lock this page, i can keep this up all day==") John Carter, who has commented on this page, was one of the editors who reverted this vandal on several occasions shortly before the semi-protection [85],[86],[87] Roger is particularly absurd when he talks about my block of a "purported" vandal. In less than half an hour the editor vandalised two BLPs [88] [89] and carried out two obvious acts of vandalism on L. Ron Hubbard [90] [91], and had previously carried out libellous, homophobic BLP-related vandalism [92] which was immediately reverted by ClueBot [93]. I did, of course, look at this entire edit history before blocking the vandal (who has not returned). How is this "purported" vandalism? So either Roger is unable to recognise obvious vandalism or he's wilfully misrepresenting this.

What's more, it has always been the case that the use of rollback to deal with simple vandalism has been considered appropriate, even if the person doing the rollback may be under some previous restraint. To quote Rlevse just a few days ago: "Admins actions against things like vandals and BLP violations are exempt [from restrictions on tool usage]". [94] Consider the implications of what Roger is proposing here. He is saying that it is inappropriate if you revert obvious vandalism or block obvious vandals on any article you have ever edited, even if you are not involved in any content disputes on those articles. That's a completely unworkable proposition.

Since I have to assume that Roger knows full well what he's doing, it seems apparent that he is indeed intent on finding a pretext to throw me "under the bus", as Phil puts it, on nakedly trumped-up grounds. That's a disgraceful abuse of the arbitration process. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Based on the entirety of the evidence that has piled up over the years about your editing in topics where you have a strong point of view, including Scientology, I do not want you editing article on Scientology which is a highly contentious topic on Wikipedia now. A topic ban is the method we use to remove an user from a topic. So a topic ban is proposed in this case for you. Unless we pass the topic ban, the day after the case closes, you could write a BLP about a Scientologist. I do not think it is in the best interest of the Community for you to be writing articles on this topic. So, I plan to vote for a topic ban. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to write a BLP of a Scientologist. I've not written any BLPs of Scientologists in the first place. As I've already said, I've only made substantial contributions to a handful of Scientology-related articles in the last 15 months. This is not an area in which I have had much significant involvement in any recent timeframe. You have no reason whatsoever to believe that is going to change, and no evidence whatsoever has been presented indicating that I have any significant involvement currently, or any involvement in current disputes. This is an absolutely blatant exercise in deciding the desired outcome at the start and then finding - or in Roger's case manufacturing - any evidence, no matter how old, that supports the chosen outcome. It's an appalling abuse of the remit of the Committee. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

And while we're about it, do you have any comments on Roger's latest findings of fact? Do you believe that it is improper to revert obvious vandalism or block obvious vandals on an article that you've edited in the past? -- ChrisO (talk) 18:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Not everyone will agree with your definition of obvious vandal here. That is what the uninvolved policy is about. Yes, you have sometimes reverted blatant vandalism; those diffs were excluded.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:UNINVOLVED has never before been taken to mean that anyone who has substantially contributed to an article is forbidden from using any administrative tools on the article, no matter how long since their last contribution. This standard has no basis in policy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No, they weren't excluded. Look at this diff for example - an unsourced allegation of homosexuality from an editor with a history of homophobic vandalism who had just vandalised two BLPs.[95] [96] You are ignoring the pattern of edits. The editor was clearly on a vandalism spree. Or how about unexplained blanking by a newly registered editor who'd never edited before or since? How is that not vandalism? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Both removed. They are both vandalism. My apologies for including them.  Roger Davies ^talk 07:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

While I appreciate the admission of error, this only deepens my concern that the way in which this proposed decision was constructed was ill-advised, and that the decision to "get" ChrisO was made prior to the analysis of evidence. Simply put, I am unable to see how an arbitrator could look at these edits and say "ah, yes, using rollback to remove unsourced insinuations of homosexuality is a problem requiring a topic ban." I am unable to imagine coming to that conclusion based on the cited evidence. Which makes me wonder if the conclusion was reached first, and then the best available evidence to support it was culled, despite the fact that the best available evidence is still quite poor. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to put my ass on the line again once more here; since there are already proposed sanctions against me, it can't hurt. I too was given a Roger Davies Finding of 'Fact' (TM), punishing my attempt to contribute to this case by claiming it is a violation of the terms of my topic ban. I'll let other admins decide on that, one has already denounced it. Have a look at the message Roger left on my talk page too. Sorry Roger, I'm a named party in this, so I think I'm entitled to say one or two things.

It is quite obvious that Roger is trying to be even-handed. He wants a clear-out of POV-pushers, and he's trying do do so on both sides to make it fair. Commendable, I'm sure you all agree. Shame he's going about it in the worst way. I nearly choked when I went through the stuff about ChrisO; with him and at least two other users Roger has presented FO'F's against, IMH topic bans are totally unjustified. Plenty of the pro-Sci editors have enough to get them topic-banned, but Roger needs a few on the other side cleared out to create a 'balance', and he's willing to misrepresent evidence in order to do it. The ends do not justify the means.

It's also hugely ironic that in the case of clearing out anti-Sci editors, Roger struggles to find evidence that justifies his actions, so he misrepresents what's there, but when it comes to pro-Sci editors who are up for a topic ban, there's plenty of undeniable evidence against them. I think that speaks volumes about which side is the cause of most of the trouble.

Also, Roger, you seem to have overlooked Justallofthem's (confirmed by two checkusers) sock account Truthtell in all of your proposed remedies etc. The Legendary Shadow! (talk) 22:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

A few points. (i) It would be inappropriate to sanction you for giving evidence in a case in which you have been involved so there is no proposed sanction other than a replacement of the existing topic ban with the generic ArbCom one. Unlike the existing topic ban, the ArbCom has built-in provisions for removing the restriction and a return to editing in the topic based on evidence of good faith editing elsewhere. (ii) ChrisO has a long history of problematic editing in this topic and other topics. He has already been sanctioned in several ArbCom cases. For the last year, he has been less active than before in Scientology but that doesn't mean he has lost interest in it nor that he won't repeat earlier behaviours in it. Absent recognition of the past problems and categoric assurances that they won't happen again, I'm not sure what else to propose. (iii) This topic area has been polarized and controversial for years; it would be surprising if everyone agreed with the findings. (iv) You may not agree with all the findings but that's not the same as wilfully misrepresenting the evidence. (iv) Truthtell is covered by the FOF but not named. I've just suggested an alternative remedy. (v) This topic has been the subject of vicious fighting by both sides for years; there is no quota system operating.  Roger Davies ^talk 04:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO has received exceedingly mild reprobation in a couple of three-year old arbcom cases, and has not edited Scientology articles substantially in the last year. So because he might return to the articles and might return to three year old patterns of behavior, he gets a topic ban? What, exactly, would he have had to do over the last year *not* to deserve a topic ban? Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Mild or not, his record is scarcely typical of the admin corps, who are supposed to be exemplars.

The patterns of behaviour in this topic start, as you say, three years ago and (ignoring the technical rollback stuff) continued in diminishing form until last July. This does not mean though that they've gone forever and there is every likehood they will return, especially if the topic breaks out into open warfare again. In this situation, it is likelier that ChrisO is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Some categoric assurances and some specific promises from ChrisO would help set my mind, and the minds of my colleagues, at rest.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Puzzled

I have not been following this case actively, since as far as I knew I was not involved in a large-scale dispute over Scientology, but I see, much to my surprise, that in fact I am involved in such a dispute, as evidenced by the 8th Finding of Fact.

Am I unaware of a swath of edits on my account? As far as I know my involvement extends to three AfD closes and one block, all months old. I am thus forced to ask, what, exactly, dispute is resolved by the arbcom seeking to officially chasten me for poor judgment?

I know that I beat the "I edit under my real name" drum a lot, but this is a genuine concern. I am on the job market, in a competitive field, in five months. I chose to edit Wikipedia under my own name because I believed it was important that people, rather than anonymous usernames, be responsible for article content - that this is an important part of establishing Wikipedia's credibility.

When I did so, had I known that a few years later the arbcom would expand its remit to passing judgment on uninvolved users for the sake of passing judgment, as opposed to as part of any actual remedy or intervention, I would never have done so. As it stands, I have a username change request to return to semi-anonymity. But the point remains - given that many of us do not enjoy anonymity on Wikipedia, the arbcom has a responsibility to use its considerable authority carefully and judiciously. Issuing side findings about more or less uninvolved users does not satisfy this remit. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

As a secondary point, Findings of Fact generally lead into remedies. What is the purpose of specifically singling out Phil (and David) for a finding if no remedy is to come of it? As of this posting I see no remedy pointed at either of them. 198.161.174.194 (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Remedies are generally included after the finding of fact is. Sort of like not putting the carriage before the horse. It might be nice to have some sort of remedy posted shortly though. John Carter (talk) 19:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That would, to my mind, lessen the problem of an arbitrary finding of fact, but would probably heighten the overall problems with this ruling. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence posted

I had asked Roger a couple of days ago if he would be so kind as to pop the FoF and remedy relating to me on the Workshop page. While I don't have a problem with the general sentiment, and overall consider Roger's proposals quite salomonic, I did want to address a couple of details about the evidence Roger cites in his proposed FoF.

Since I haven't heard back from Roger and voting is in progress, I have now posted some points on the Evidence page. Jayen466 08:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Additional evidence

Jayen466 (talk · contribs) neglects to mention a key thread from the Reliable sources noticeboard. Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#User:Jayen466_makes_false_claims_in_Arbitration_case_evidence. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 18:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• Responded to. [97] Jayen466 19:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO sanctions - arguing both sides

If an editor draws a topic ban, this means that they lack sufficient judgment to restrain themselves. I think it is very incorrect for such a person to have the power to place restrictions on other editors. If ChrisO needs to be topic banned, I think loss of adminship is also necessary.

The newest diffs of misconduct by ChrisO appear to be in July 2008. Is there any evidence that he has recognized past errors and stopped? If that is the case, I think we should consider something lesser than a topic ban (and desysop). Jehochman ^Talk 16:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that misconduct in one area implies that one isn't an otherwise valuable sysop. For example, Jayjg was recently topic banned, but I think the committee would have resisted removing his sysop bit altogether (I would have opposed it, at least). For another example, there's an admin who is still under an ArbCom restriction preventing him from interacting with a particular user, but he's also very productive with his admin bit. Again, I don't think there's anything logically inconsistent about a topic banned admin.

Whether he ought to be topic banned is another question, however. Cool Hand Luke 16:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Just so. I still feel that it is inconsistent for people to have sysop access while they are under an external control for poor judgment. If you still trust ChrisO to be a sysop, why not give him an admonishment and trust him to obey it? Jehochman ^Talk 17:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

We know from past experience that some users have a blind spot on certain topics and that if they stay away from that topic then they do not have problems. So, I do not necessarily think that in every instance a topic ban means that a desysop is needed. If I did then I would be insisting that BHG be desysop by opening a full case. ChrisO's situation is s/w more complex since he's had sanctions in other cases on other topics. But still, I do not feel that this case is the best way to address his admin status in general. He is now a party in another case now where it can be addressed if needed. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:10, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

And yet in this case, as I've just outlined, the findings of fact being used against me are so grossly flawed that they are a complete disgrace. I've been watching arbitration cases for five years and I've never seen an arbitrator so misuse and misrepresent evidence. For goodness' sake, please sort this out - it's damaging the credibility of the entire committee. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Flo, those sanctions are mostly in cases three years old and older. The only remotely recent case of note was the CAMERA case, where his actions were upheld. So we're talking about a user, basically, with no arbcom sanctions in three years who is suddenly being dragged into a case and given a topic ban based on evidence such as the use of rollback in ways that is entirely in line with standard and accepted practice. How does this make sense? Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2/Workshop ChrisO is currently an involved party in Macedonia 2 case. His actions triggered the case. I can not ignore that ChrisO is willing to make provocative contributions. The topic of Scientology needs all editors and admins that make provocative edits to be removed so that the article can include stable NPOV content. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Flo, this is plain wrong. The editors on Talk:Greece agreed well before my actions that the issue would be referred to ArbCom on April 22nd - see [98]. The arbitration case was duly opened on April 22nd. The case would have been opened on April 22nd whether or not I had acted to move the Macedonia article. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Chris, your provocative actions caused the Request to be made early and stressed out some editors who thought that they had a plan in place to ask for ArbCom assistance in finding a solution. So instead of being an organized request, the situation escalated, right? FloNight♥♥♥ 19:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Flo, please save arguments about the Macedonia case for the Macedonia case pages - this isn't on-topic for this case. I'd like to focus on what's being proposed here. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that whatever the flaws with the evidence currently presented, the reasoning that "We are topic banning you from Scientology articles because of your poor editing on Macedonia articles" is even worse. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Why does ChrisO keep showing up in the midst of all these controversies? Maybe it would be better not to sanction him here, but to have a good look at the overall picture. I think he deserves a fair hearing, and there is at least an appearance that he has not gotten one here. There is an appearance that people are talking past each other and not listening to ChrisO. I take no position on whether he's right or wrong, but the process at this point looks a bit ugly. Jehochman ^Talk 20:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea why I got dragged into this controversy. As I've said ad nauseum, I wasn't involved in the disputes that prompted this arbitration and I've not even had any significant involvement in this topic area since the start of 2008. Wikignoming on a handful of articles, a small number of reverts of vandalism and blocking a couple of obvious vandals - and that's it. This controversy is not of my making. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The roots of this controversy go back a long way and the focus of previous cases has been on the admirers of Scientology. However, it takes two to tango and it didn't fix the systemic problems.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The systemic problems include a group infamous for their viciousness on the Internet who are engaged in a coordinated sockpuppet attack on Wikipedia. Chastising administrators for small errors in dealing with it creates a rather horrific chilling effect. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The viciousness has not exactly been one-sided. You've only got to look at the BLPs to see that.  Roger Davies ^talk 06:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

(od) I disagree with the notion that a topic ban automatically leads to a desysop. It is often the topic itself - particularly when it's a war zone (as I believe you characterised Scientology) - that brings out the worst in an editor and disengaging from it completely fixes the problem. On the other hand, admonishments do traditionally stack up against an admin so that may not be particularly appropriate here either.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

But here we come back to the central point which I've asked repeatedly without getting any response from you. Where is the evidence that I am causing any problems in this area? Other than vandalism reverts and the occasional wikignoming, I have already largely disengaged from this topic area. There is no dispute involving me. None of your diffs is much less than about a year old. What exactly is the problem that I am currently causing in this topic area? -- ChrisO (talk) 08:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I have replied. The main concern is that you have a strong investment in the topic and this has reflected in your behaviour. Whether or not this is conscious is another matter altogether. However, I haven't seen any acknowledgement from you that this might be the case (though I may have missed it in the bandwidth). I know that your involvement has reduced recently but that doesn't render everything in the past moot. If you have any proposals that will address these concerns, please outline them.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Roger, since you feel that ChrisO is trustworthy enough to be a sysop, it should be sufficient to ask him to refrain from questionable editing of Scientology topics. Why do we need to topic ban him without any sort of prior warning? If he is warned now, he can only cause a small, finite number of additional issues. I think a valued member of the community should be given this leniency. If that leniency is abused, then we should be very strict. Jehochman ^Talk 14:16, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

See my posting above to ChrisO. This topic is already under article probation, which lowers the threshold considerably. ChrisO has already collected warnings in various forms in other cases, and has been blocked for 3RR. Something different is threfore needed. Perhaps an acknowledgement of past problems, a voluntary (but binding) restriction on how he edits and on use of the tools?  Roger Davies ^talk 05:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The finding and remedy against ChrisO are prima faciae invalid

The more I look at this finding, the more troubled I am by it - there is barely a single true assertion in the whole thing. This is worth really going through, to show the depths of how poorly considered this finding is.

1. "Since then five (nos. 6, 7, 9, 13, 18) of his twenty most-edited article are Scientology related." This is true, but let's look at these five articles - Battlefield Earth (film), Xenu, L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and Dianetics. This includes heavy contributions, in other words, to two featured articles and another one-time good article in the area. His sixth-most edited Scientology topic, Space opera in Scientology scripture, was also a one-time featured article. So these contributions, while existent, seem substantial and to the project's benefit. Furthermore, it is worth noting the last-edited dates of these five articles.

   Battlefield Earth: May of 2008

   Xenu: May of 2008 (vandalism revert)

   L. Ron Hubbard: May of 2009, for minor changes - last edit before that was March of 2008.

   Scientology: March of 2009

   Dianetics: March of 2009

   This is hardly heavy editing.

2. I am puzzled by the relevance of a three-year old incident to this case. I am further puzzled by the degree to which this seems to be an arbcom attack for content decisions. The social mores of the site were very different in 2005, and pages such as Barbara Schwartz were much more tolerated. It is unfair, it seems to me, to apply current BLP policies so retroactively. And what is the relevance of a keep vote on an AfD - an AfD, I should point out that was closed as keep. I count dozens of keep votes there. His declining of a CSD was entirely within policy - a CSD of a page that had been discussed repeatedly on AfD is incorrect. And his protection in February of 2007 was in an edit war he was not involved in. It appears that the standard of excessive involvement in this case is "if you have ever edited the article, you are unfit to use administrative actions related to it." This is not a standard based in any policy we have.
3. The entirety of section B appears to be content decisions of the sort the arbcom supposedly does not make. The issue of self-published sources does not seem to me to be inherently problematic. Editing to use references that you have written does not violate WP:COI, and self-published sources are not inherently unreliable - indeed, depending on the specific subject, different sources may well be needed. As I frequently point out, anyone who edits on topics related to Babylon 5 while ignoring Usenet sources is a fool, as the creator of the show posted extensively about episodes and the creative process while making it. If the sources were determined by a consensus of editors to be unreliable *and* ChrisO repeatedly reinserted them there would be some issue here. But the actions shown are not in and of themselves sanctionable. I should also note, we are dealing here again with years old disputes, and occasionally problematically collapsing the timeline - the two diffs cited on Tom Cruise as part of one pattern of editing stem from 18 months apart. Some problematic pattern there! Absent a pattern of this sort of editing that is in some way related to a current dispute - and really, ideally, this current dispute, no issue under the arbcom's remit exists.
4. Two light wrist-slaps that are three years old and a pair of 3RR violations? That's it?
5. I have already said much about this section, but I will reiterate - these uses of rollback are entirely within accepted practice. They were all reverting obviously unproductive and disruptive edits, and were in no way using rollback as part of a content dispute.
6. Indeed, in January and April he did protect Xenu. The April protection came a month after his last edit to the page. The January protection came four days after his last edit, which was a reversion of simple vandalism, and over a month after his last content edit. There is no standard by which this is excessive involvement for administrative actions. The other cited instances are equally extreme.

This seems to me to violate arbitration policy in several key regards.

• There is no actual dispute involving ChrisO, which means that the issue is not actually under arbcom jurisdiction.
• The behavior in question does not violate any established Wikipedia policies, as, for instance, protecting a page a month after you last edited it is not excessive involvement.

Given this, it is my belief that the arbcom does not have the authority to issue the remedy in question. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This last statement is theoretically incorrect - the Arbcom theoretically has the power to control the horizontal and the vertical, and could issue any foolish and arbitrary remedy they voted to.

However, it's questionable that the tone of the remedies will in any way improve an encyclopedia. The genesis of this case is the vexed topic of organised CoS-IP-based sockpuppet attacks on Wikipedia that have been going on since 2005 (first since 2004). It's not clear how topic-banning any editor with a strong opposing opinion (most of whom are topic area experts, and many of whom have racked up several featured articles on the topic) is going to stop these or ... improve writing an encyclopedia. I also suggested several times that Roger do his homework into the discussion of the topic in the arbcom-l archives (I would have listed links for him, but ex-arbs are now on the functionaries list instead so don't have archive access), but he appears to have instead - going by edit history - started with remedies, gone from there to FoFs and from there to evidence. I also asked if there was secret evidence (the only explanation I could think of for the quality of the publicly listed evidence), and he says not.

Put it this way, I'm already outlining the appeal. So far this arbcom case hits its head on every step on the way down - David Gerard (talk) 19:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the arbcom theoretically has the authority to issue whatever they like, but much of that seems to be that this is a wiki and we let them edit proposed decision pages. But we have an arbitration policy, and it presumably constrains their actions in some fashion, no? Why do we have WP:AP then? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Very true. The Arbcom has to operate within the boundaries of existing policies and practices. What Roger in particular seems to have done in this case is to go way, way beyond those boundaries and - in effect - either carved out brand-new policies or ruled invalid existing policies (or both). But that's not within the scope of Arbcom's remit - it applies policy on behalf of the community; the community makes policy. You've already pointed out the various respects in which the sanctions aren't based on existing policy. Rlevse posted only a few days ago a statement of his understanding of policy - "Admins actions against things like vandals and BLP violations are exempt [from restrictions on tool usage]". [99]. That was my understanding too and it seems to have been everyone's understanding until now. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

While the origin of this arb is certainly the editing of Scientologists from Scientology controlled IPs (nice way you have of phrasing that, David), the panel has chosen to take a broader look at the general nature of the articles and of the editors that dominate them. And guess what, they found exactly what I found when I started editing here almost three years ago; one-sided articles created and protected by agressive critics of Scientology. You, yourself, most definitely included, if a bit before my time. That they are willing to address that is admirable. If they throw out a bit of baby with the bathwater, well no-one is really hitting their head on the floor, are they? Blaming it all on the Scientologists is the old smokescreen, David. I don't think it flies here. --Justallofthem (talk) 19:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but there's still no evidence that there is *any* current dispute involving ChrisO and Scientology. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Just, while I agree that it's not necessarily a bad thing to address the "general nature of the articles and of the editors that dominate them", that runs into the fundamental question that I've raised several times before - what I am doing now or at any recent time that is problematic? I don't think anyone could claim that I "dominate" Scientology-related articles. How could I, if I hardly edit them any more? You've edited a lot of Scientology articles in the last year and a half; have you seen me "dominating" any of them, or for that matter even editing them? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I have no major objections to your behavior in the Scn articles recently (notwithstanding the few bits of carelessness I already mentioned - nothing deserving of a topic ban). I do not believe that people with POVs, known or unknown, should be blocked from editing - that is a ridiculous premise. The only thing that matters is their edits - especially in article space - and no strong case has been against you there. Other than that, if you have used your admin tools in the Scn articles then that was ill-advised but perhaps understandable and certainly forgivable provided you resolve to not do so in the future. --Justallofthem (talk) 13:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Justallofthem, it seems possible that you may be banned from Scientology. Why don't you just back away from the conflict right now? I don't see how you commenting on ChrisO's behavior helps in any way. Jehochman ^Talk 14:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh shut up, Jehochman. --Justallofthem (talk) 15:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I regret to say Jehochman might have a point here. While anyone's input is always welcome, it is once in a while the case that certain parties' input might, for whatever reason, not have the kind of impact that they were hoping. Considering you are apparently in a position where you might be banned from this content, your own credibility and opinions might not carry that much weight with many people right now. John Carter (talk) 18:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Well that's their problem, not mine, now isn't it? --Justallofthem (talk) 19:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Calm down please, all of you. This is not a productive line of discussion. I suggest that you leave it at that and move on to something else. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe someone's just thinking differently

I think we all know that this is not the first Arbitration that Scientology has been invovled in, and it probably will not be the last. That being said, I think it could be argued that it would make some degree of sense to establish during this arbitration just who committed what misconduct, if any, previous to the arbitration. This would be useful both for enforcement of the existing arbitration, when it is closed, and yes, whatever arbitration case is opened subsequently. Right now, the only apparent "gradation" of warnings is the verb used in those warnings - advised, reminded, admonished, etc. They could reasonably be seen as being somewhat vague. It could be argued that giving someone a penalty, even for previous behavior, and determining the length of that penalty might be more useful in future cases. This would not necessarily mean that in every case the penalty would necessarily ever be enacted. I can easily see some sort of ruling to the effect of X has been banned from the content for disruption which was done two years ago for six months. Considering that misconduct was two years ago, however, and there has been no subsequent disruption (if true), the six months are now written off as "time served" or something. Similarly, it might be possible to impose "suspended sentences", such as perhaps a one- or two-month suspended sentence, basically for the purposes of just making it easier for the people involved in the next ArbCom to see who was found to have done what earlier and how negatively it was viewed, in the event there is some sort of recurrence. It could be argued that the broader range of "penalties" available in what might be called "real sanctions", as opposed to warnings/reminders/etc., might be more useful for future ArbComs to have available. Maybe. Anyway, I have myself no clue one way or another whether this is even remotely relevant to this case, but thought it might be worth mentioning anyway. Also, it has been stated before that the amount and regularity of misconduct regarding this particular subject has been such that it might be necessary to enact much stronger restrictions than it generally would be elsewhere. That might be the reason that individuals such as ChrisO are being considered. I am not myself saying that is necessarily cause for this particular editor to be considered, simply proposing a possible reason for it. John Carter (talk) 14:59, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the proposed sanctions is, as you say, longterm dysfunctionality in the topic. The onlty way forward is behaviour change so the environment changes. The concern about repeated warnings, admonishments etc against recidivists, is they don't often work with deeprooted behaviour. The idea of alternative sanctions in one or two instances, tied in to behavioural change guarantees by the editor and voluntary restrictions, is appealing and well worth exploring.  Roger Davies ^talk 05:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Further problems

As I look further, I am finding myself further troubled by this case. The topic ban for User:Touretzky seems to be based on extremely minor COI editing - twice reinserting a source that was being removed without, so far as I can tell, any explanation, and was being removed by a SPS sockpuppet account.

Furthermore, as I look at Touretzky's talk page edits, it is clear to me that he openly admits to being the author of the piece, which seems to me to blunt any COI charges, assuming the source is a reliable source (which is a separate issue). WP:COI, indeed, encourages openly admitting your COI, and says "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion."

Surely the two insertions of the citation do not constitute "excessive self-citation." So barring evidence of a community consensus to remove the content, this does not seem to me to violate the COI policy.

Broadening the COI policy to make declared and known conflicts of interest that are not edit warred over grounds for a topic ban is a shocking expansion of the COI clause - by that logic, the arbcom would want to consider topic banning me from all academia and popular culture articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposals for a way forward

In the interests of finding a reasonable solution to this issue, I'd like to make a suggestion. I'm conscious that I seem to have spent most of my time on this page complaining rather than proposing a way forward, so this will hopefully rectify that. There's been no suggestion that I'm currently or at any time recently involved in any problematic editing in this topic area. I'm certainly not involved in any disputes - talk about past brief 3RR blocks is irrelevant since there's no evidence that I've edit-warred in this topic area (indeed, Roger has withdrawn that particular assertion in his FoFs). On the other hand, Roger and Flo have raised some concerns about past editing and administrative actions and Roger has invited me to suggest some proposals.

• Roger has raised concerns about admin actions - specifically the use of rollback and page protection. I do not believe that I have acted improperly in this regard, or that his apparent principle - that any use of admin tools on any article one has ever edited at any time is inappropriate - has any basis whatsoever in policy. However, I'm willing to agree voluntarily to refrain from using the tools in this topic area. I only have a handful of this topic's articles still on my watchlist in any case. Someone else can deal with the vandalism (and usually does).

• Flo has raised concerns about BLP issues. I acknowledge making some past errors in this area, though I note that they were mostly at a time when standards were perhaps more relaxed than they are now, and my actions have not been the cause of any dispute or controversy until now. BLPs in this topic area have never been much of an interest to me anyway - I have only ever edited a handful - so I would have no problem in agreeing to a voluntary moratorium on editing them.

• A topic ban would not serve the best interests of the project. I have a solid track record of writing high-quality articles in this topic area. I was significantly or entirely responsible for getting four articles in this topic area to Featured Article status - Alaska Mental Health Act (written entirely by myself), Battlefield Earth (film) (co-written with Cirt), Space opera in Scientology scripture (though since de-featured) and Xenu (rewritten largely by myself to get it up to FA standard). I believe I'm right in saying that only Cirt has more FAs to his name in this topic area. Earlier in this arbitration, I undertook to fix the problems that had been raised concerning Anynobody's article L. Ron Hubbard and the military - you can see the results at Military career of L. Ron Hubbard, which is currently going through peer review and will in due course go through good article review (and FA review, if it gets that far). I don't think anyone is disputing that there are significant problems with some articles in this topic area - the question is what we can do about that. I'd be happy to volunteer to address some of those articles by resolving sourcing problems and working through the various peer review processes to get them up to GA and possibly FA standards - basically doing for other problematic articles what I'm doing now for Military career of L. Ron Hubbard. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)