Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Election

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This material was moved from the main case page to reduce clutter

Contents 1 Statement by Xed 2 Statement by Guettarda 3 Time frame question 4 Content dispute 5 Comment by TheronJ 6 Article probation template 7 From WP:RFAR "Clarification" section: Article probation remedy for Election

[edit] Statement by Xed

The request revolves around a content dispute. Content disputes are not covered by "Requests for arbitration" as far as I know. Throughout the process Sandifer has been in the minority in regards to views on the future direction of the article. The progression of this issue is as follows:

1. Without discussing any issues, Phil Sandifer adds NPOV tags to the article
2. When asked to provide specific reasons for adding these tags, he refuses
3. Phil Sandifer declares himself "baffled" that he is being accused of adding tags without discussion
4. He is asked that "if you have a problem with a specific citation just point it out, and give us a specific reason why. "
5. Sandifer declines
6. Sandifer is asked again
7. Sandifer relents and explains his opposition is based on the fact that the information is from local newspapers
8. Sandifer starts to remove sources
9. Sandifer says, "Who is Greg Palast, and why is his POV being reported?". Palast is a notable BBC journalist.
10. Sandifer compares article to LaRouche and pseudoscience (see above)

-Xed 11:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Recusal request: In light of this post on the Wiki-en mailing list, I feel it is unlikely this case will be heard objectively by Fred Bauder, who has already accused some of the editors here himself, in hardly objective terms:

"Exactly, excellent parallel {LaRouche}; although, this POV bunch is a bit bigger and better organized. And intimidating."

With all due respect, I'd like to ask him to recuse on the grounds that he has expressed a specific bias against this specific article's specific editors, and for the complainant. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 03:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

My post is a reiteration of my long standing opposition to tendentious editing by organized groups whether they be the La Rouchies or the Republican Party. I believe my position reflects Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. A statement of support for Wikipedia policy cannot form the basis for recusal. Fred Bauder 11:54, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fred. Your mailing list post was not about policy, but about a specific group of editors. you responded to Phil's post and agreed that the subject matter of the article was akin to the issues faced on 'LaRouche'-articles, called the editors of the article a 'POV Bunch' who are 'organized' and 'intimidating', and basically threw your hat in Phil's ring.

If your post were indeed about policy, I'd leave it be - but this is not, it's about the specifics of Phil's position, and your having been on the record backing his POV 100% (to the point of calling the editors a 'POV Bunch'.

Moreover, I'm not clear what kind of 'organization' you believe the editors all have/belong to. If you're saying that solely because some may be Democrats or Greens or Independents or Libertarians (or election reformers, or statisticians, or activists, or political scientists) that does not appear to be a valid reason to consider their editing a violation of NPOV (outside groups editing Wikipedia). If you could demonstrate proof that these editors were indeed part of an organized effort to slant Wikipedia, I would be the first one to ban the lot of them. However I am quite certain that is not the case, for me at least.

Is there anything beyond your own view of the personal political affiliations of the editors that establishes their acting as an 'organization'? I believe there is not... in my case, I know none of these editors from any other forum than Wikipedia, and I have not quizzed them on their party affiliation, nor engaged with them to affect or stack opinion outside of Wikipedia itself - as Phil's post to wiki-en (and indeed your response) seemed to do.

It's not meant as a slight, but I have a real concern that you have, in fact, already declared your opinion on the matter. Thanks. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 15:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Recusal request: I must agree with RyanFreisling and ask Fred Bauder to recuse himself. To compare the editors of this article to La Rouchians and call them a "POV bunch" is to express a clear bias in this case. -- noosphere 18:27, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Guettarda

Phil Sandifer/Snowspinner has been on a mission to get these articles removed from Wikipedia since at least Decemeber of 2004. He nominated the whole series for deletion on December 5, 2004 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], less than three weeks after the initial VFD was closed as a Keep the initial VFD was closed as a Keep. Despite strong community support to keep the articles, Phil returned to the issue a year later, engaging in personal attacks and character assassinations on WikiEn-L in October of 2005, and edit-warring over the articles. He returned to the issue a week ago, as detailed above. Again he was unable to refrain from engaging in personal attacks against RyanFriesling. He also threatened to block her while edit-warring with her, and broke the WP:3RR while edit warring. For this he was blocked. It's especially ironic that a person who considers that Wikipedia is permanently harmed when articles about trivial webcomics are deleted, also believes that these articles harm Wikipedia. His inability to put these issues in perspective is quite remarkable.

Phil seems obsessed with this issue. He should be banned from editing this series of articles due to his repeated disruption and inability to see this issue in perspective. Wikipedia is not his personal playground, and he cannot threaten people just because they disagree with him.

[edit] Time frame question

Hi Arbitrators. My summer season is starting (I lifeguard and run a beach house) so I'll be offline more than usual. What is the usual time frame for this process? Can arbitrators contact us in the event of a time crunch? I don't want my lessened online-time interpreted as a lack of interest in the progressing case. I can check my laptop in the evenings and will certainly stay on top of events, but not nearly so frequently as when I'm behind a desk in the other three seasons. Anyway, thanks! -- User:RyanFreisling @ 23:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content dispute

First, note that I have never edited any of the pages in dispute. Most of this complaint seems to be a content dispute, not a behavior dispute. Arbitration is not the place for the content issue per se to be resolved. And it's certainly not the right place without first pursuing mediation or an RFC. It would be a very dangerous precedent, and indeed a power grab, for the committee to get involved in dictating specific content rather than general principles, such as verifiability.

Further, the complaint that a factually comprehensive article becomes POV because simply by virtue of its length is truly mind-boggling. Phil's comparison of the length of this article to that of a separate and distinct article is such a well-worn bit of wiki-sophistry that it makes me cringe. If an article becomes too long, the appropriate action is to spin off sub-articles, not to cut verifiable content.

If Phil's contention is that the content is not verifiable, then he ought first to make that case through standard channels such as the talk page, mediation, or RFC. Since his previous arbitration complaint on this article was rejected, he has pursued neither mediation nor RFC nor much dialogue before filing another complaint on the same issue. This is an abuse of process. Derex 21:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by TheronJ

I'm moving this over from the evidence talk page since, on reflection, it's not evidence. I apologize if my obsessive tweaking has made anyone re-read it or lose interest.

After Ryan quoted me on the evidence page, I thought I would chime in with my opinion about this whole kerfuffle. (I'm not confident enough in my opinion to put it on the main page, but here it is.)

1. I'll stand behind my statements about Ryan. I've run into her on a bunch of pages, and I've never seen her act in anything other than the utmost good faith. I rarely agree with her POV on the underlying issues, but she's always had a great committment to ensuring that the encylopedia has accurate and verifiable information. She's always willing to engage discussions, and I think she's a great asset to Wikipedia.
2. I have no reason to believe that Phil is acting in anything other than good faith either. I sympathize with his feelings about those pages (I'm not sure if I agree, but I sympathize). So I'd hate to see this devolve into "Is Ryan or Phil a bad person," and I'm pretty sure it won't.

Here's my take on what this debate is all about:

1. By collecting a whole bunch of data points that (mostly) comply with WP:V, it's possible to collect what starts to look like a narrative of how the Republicans stole the 2004 election by hiding secret programs in the electronic voting machines or undersupplying machines to urban districts or something, or, less extremely, how "serious questions have been raised" about this or that aspect of the election.
2. I don't doubt that someday, the pages might become a great encylopedia entry. Right now, the defense that they 'collect a lot of information' doesn't strike me as that great -- most of the information is tough to read and out of context, and some of the pages are downright awful. (The only subpage I've read, 2004 United States presidential election controversy, voting machines, is a great example of everything that's wrong with the pages, and I challenge anyone to read it from front to back.)
3. However, even if you conclude, as I do, that the pages aren't that great now, the question becomes what to do about it, and I think that's what this RFA is really about. Some possibilities:
   1. It might be possible, if one or two right wing POV editors spent a lot of time debating with the current group of editors, to improve the page. It would be difficult, though, because (1) over the eight pages, it would mean someone would have to spend several hours a week working on them for the indefinite future, and there isn't anyone that interested in the pages with the right temperment to try to balance them, and (2) because the issue hasn't been addressed in as much detail by the mainstream press and/or a neutral body as by the left wing press, there aren't a lot of authoritative sources to say "Yes, this thing went wrong or that thing went wrong, but things have been going wrong since the beginning of time, and the evidence that the things were intentional or material is extremely speculative."
   2. A good example of riding herd on this kind of stuff is the Global warming controversy page and subpages, where global warming sceptics would like to do something similar to what I think is happening on these pages -- stitch together every statement of opinion and every data point that meets WP:V and casts doubt on global warming. They can't present the info in the way that they would like because (1) one or two editors spend hours a week squashing the conspiracy theories and (2) those editors have scientific consensus to fall back on.
   3. Another possibility would be for the ArbCom to do nothing. IMHO, the pages need work now, but that's true about a lot of pages in Wikipedia. Arguably, over the passage of time, the Wikiprocess will delete the NN info and improve the remaining stuff.
   4. So the ultimate question for this RFA is whether is a Wikipedia policy solution to the dispute. Phil and TBeatty seem to be arguing that Ryan, Kevin, and the others should be barred from editing these pages, which might solve the problem, but seems pretty extreme once you concede that they are willing to work with Phil, but Phil (quite reasonably) isn't willing to put in the (enormous amount of) work that would be required. Ryan, Kevin, and the others argue that Phil should either spend the time to work on his concerns one by one, or should mediate, which I am sure would improve the page, but would take a lot of work.

Here, I don't know what the solution is. IMHO, Ryan's right that if TBeatty and Phil spent enough time working on the pages, they could probably negotiate the pages into something they would accept. IMHO, Phil is also right that the pages as they are now are NPOV and rely on a bunch of NN (but mostly V) info. If I were the ArbCom, I would (1) tell Phil and TBeatty to seek mediation; (2) suggest that they try an RFC; and (3) maybe explain some policies that are relevant to approaching the dispute, but ultimately send everyone home without sanctions. TheronJ 22:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article probation template

To facilitate implementation of article probation, I've created a new template, {{article probation}}, to be placed on the talk page of the article under probation. --Tony Sidaway 13:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

That template uses all sorts of pejorative wording that is nowhere to be found in the arbcom decision. -- Noosphere 17:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you quote the offending wording, please? I thought I had cited the article probation motion in the arbitration case directly. --Tony Sidaway 18:23, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's the first sentence which reads, "Articles which are of low quality due to point of view editing, sustained edit warring, or other quality and policy issues may be placed on Wikipedia:Article probation." (emphasis mine)

There's nothing in the decision to say that the articles in question are of "low quality", are so "due to point of view editing, sustained edit warring or other quality and policy issues." To imply that is the case is pejorative towards the content of the articles that are stamped with this template. -- Noosphere 19:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You refer above to the wording of the policy document Article probation, to which the template refers. The bulk of that document was written by Fred Bauder, an arbitrator, who in the current case proposed and obtained agreement on a finding worded, in part, as:

Phil Sandifer has adequately justified his addition of the NPOV tag by providing his reasoning as to why the text was a violation of the NPOV policy.

He also obtained agreement on an enforcement motion that said:

If the articles are not substantially improved by continued editing the Arbitration Committee may impose editing restrictions on users whose editing is counterproductive or disruptive.

The policy page simply represents current thinking on this matter. Bearing mind that this is policy developed by the Arbitration Committee and should be modified with care, I suggest that you present your concerns on Wikipedia talk:Article probation. --Tony Sidaway 22:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't a policy, according to Fred Bauder.[7] And I don't know where you get the idea that it "represents current thinking on this matter". It certainly doesn't represent arbcom's thinking on the matter, since they rejected outright ruling on the content of the article, which is what phrases such as "low quality" are.

I also don't see what Phil providing his reasoning for a NPOV tag has to do with this wording either. The ruling does not say the articles violated NPOV, they just say Phil provided his reasoning. Lots of other people provided their own reasoning that ran counter to Phil's opinion on the matter. So I really don't see why this non-policy linked to by the template should take all sorts of liberties with the arbcom judgement by being pejorative towards the articles that link to it. -- noosphere 23:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed completely. The template seems to be worded most closely in a way that reflects Fred's (failed) remedies and expressed POV, not those that passed. There is no quality judgment about content in the remedy calling for this template, and therefore it is inappropriate to include such a judgment about article quality in the template. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 00:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

If what you say is true then article probation needs to be fixed. Please talk to Fred and others on the talk page about this. --Tony Sidaway 00:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I have raised the point on the talk page. We'll see if there's a response and whether the actual ArbCom decisions (and not Fred's opinions) are reflected on the template. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 00:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From WP:RFAR "Clarification" section: Article probation remedy for Election

Does the ArbCom intend that Phil Sandifer, a party to the Election case, have the same power to ban other editors from the articles involved that the ArbCom is granting to administrators in general in Remedy 2.1? If not, could that please be made explicit? I am concerned about the chilling effect on editors such as myself who wish to continue editing the articles but do not agree with Phil in certain respects which could invite the abuse of this new remedy. I'm not opposed to the remedy for other admins in general; nor am I suggesting that Phil would likely ever take part in such a clear conflict of interest. It's just that I, and I think others, would be more likely to help improve the articles if this unlikely possibility were considerably more remote. 71.132.140.65 08:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Administrators involved in a conflict are never supposed to use their adminship to gain the upper hand in the conflict. If he were to, arbcom decision or no, it would be wrong. I don't see any reason to make a specific remedy to this effect, especially since there has been no evidence presented of him abusing adminship in this case. Dmcdevit·t 15:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Phil did threaten to block me for disagreeing with him, describing my conduct erroneously as 'vandalism', on a related article (the 3rd, aborted VfD, if I recall) on which he was an editor. I believe that diff was presented. However, since he didn't actually follow thru on his threat, I guess that's been taken to mean that there's been no evidence presented. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 03:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Concur with Dmcdevit. It would be entirely inappropriate for Phil to use his adminship here; he should refrain from doing so under normal admin conduct guidelines, without it needing to be specifically stated. (And preferably, he should not even appear to suggest it.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)