Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waterboarding

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Case Opened on 16:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Case Closed on 14:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. Only add a statement here after the case has begun if you are named as a party; otherwise, your statement may be placed on the talk page, and will be read in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but it should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification, and report violations of remedies at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Contents

[edit] Involved parties

[edit] Requests for comment

  • (All of these are from December 26 to today, I did not include earlier discussions)

[edit] Statement by Henrik

The battle that has been going on is growing beyond the ability of the community to handle. Several admins, myself included, have attempted to bring order to the discussion only to be dragged into the maelstrom. The basic content dispute the question of whether there is a significant dispute that Waterboarding is/is not torture, and what weight that should be given to the various positions. There has has been an unwillingess for the parties to make compromises and talk to each other, and as a result the page has been protected, almost since the begining of november. Multiple warnings and blocks, an RFC, and an attempt at community article probation have failed. There have been cases of sock puppetry, disruptive argumentation, the atmosphere is generally unproductive, and a group of students at Harvard attempting to participate in a Wikipedia debate got bitten. I would welcome ArbCom input on how to move forward, to get this article back to constructive editing.

A followup: Some have suggested mediation should be tried first. If we are dealing with sock puppets of banned users as some have suggested, I believe mediation is unlikely to be successful. Mediation is a voluntary process and requires the good faith of everybody involved. Some posts on the page seem designed to drive other editors apart and provoke confrontation and endless argument, almost in the style of HeadleyDown. This, combined with sockpuppetry, wireless Sprint addresses, strange connections between some of the users (and Free Republic somehow lurking in the shadows). Had I believed we simply had a breakdown in communications, mediation what I would have suggested. henrik•talk 17:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Neutral Good

I am one of the so-called "SPAs" on this account. I openly admit that I have a single purpose: it's called NPOV. The Waterboarding article represents one of the great moral dilemmas of the early 21st Century and it's "In The News," so it is attracting a lot of attention from observers at all points of the political spectrum. The first six words of the article pretend that "waterboarding is torture" is not disputed by anyone, despite the fact that such prominent legal experts as Rudolph Giuliani (former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, possibly the next president of the United States) and Andrew C. McCarthy (former assistant US attorney for SDNY, now director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism) have said that in some cases, waterboarding may not be torture. The "waterboarding is torture" advocates have gone so far as to extend this pretension to a section header for the section of the article that focuses on the very real dispute, expunging the word "dispute" from that section header. Administrative process has been persistently abused by one side in an attempt to WP:OWN the article; for every sockpuppet accusation that was accurate, there have been at least three resulting in findings of Unrelated or Declined, my User Talk page has been blanketed by warnings, and there have been no less than three separate threads started at WP:ANI by the same person. They have violated WP:TE and WP:DE during brief periods of semi-protection, they have an SPA of their own created at the end of October that mysteriously agrees with everything they say, and there have been absolutely zero consequences for them. Someone needs to take action to make the first six words of the article NPOV.

[edit] Statement by Black Kite

I came to this article as uninvolved; whilst there are undoubtedly good-faith editors involved in the "not torture" side of the dispute, the majority of the problems are almost certainly caused by an organised campaign of POV-pushing by numerous accounts and IPs (see Talk:Waterboarding#Protection).

Results of my initial investigations are as follows.

Shibumi2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

  • Recently confirmed as a sockmaster warring on this article by CU (Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/GooseCreek) and blocked for 2 weeks.
  • Account was created on 7 January 2007, one day after User:BryanFromPalatine was blocked for two weeks (and later indefinitely). Note that BryanFromPalatine, as the name suggests, hailed from Palatine, Illinois.
  • Both Shibumi2 and BryanFromPalatine share an major interest in the article Free Republic.

209.221.240.193 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)

  • Previously confirmed by CU as sock of User:BryanFromPalatine, it is the gateway IP from his workplace. Never blocked, however, as there are unrelated edits from this IP, presumably from unrelated employees of the company.

Neutral Good (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

  • SPA account created 22/12/2007, This diff [1] after he forgot to log in, reveals an IP address which resolves to Illinois as well.
  • Nominated Shibumi2 for adminship (Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Shibumi2, deleted and thus only viewable by admins).
  • There is no overlap whatsoever between the editing times of Neutral Good and his known IPs, and Shibumi2 and related Sprint IPs.

Other IPs which supported the "not torture" side of the dispute
68.29.174.61 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)

  • Supported "not torture" proposal on talk page. Resolves to Sprint, as does Shibumi2.

70.9.150.106 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)

  • Supported "not torture" proposal on talk page. Resolves to Sprint.

68.31.220.221 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log) "Bob"

  • accused other editors of being POV warriors. Only other edit was related to Free Republic. Resolves to Sprint.


[edit] Statement by Walton One

This is a content dispute, so I expect the ArbCom will turn it down.

I am also not sure why I have been named as a party. I have been involved in a couple of discussions on the talk page in the last two days, but I have not edit-warred. Indeed I have made a grand total of one edit to the article itself - namely this one, which consisted of adding a closing square bracket. Hardly wildly controversial.

I happen to have a viewpoint on the content issue in question which largely coincides with that of Neutral Good, but I have no idea whether he's behaved inappropriately, and I have no further comment to make on this matter. WaltonOne 13:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding to my statement. Having discussed the matter with Henrik, I understand that there are no allegations against me.
I recognise that editors such as Lawrence Cohen, Black Kite, Jehochman et al. are acting in good faith (although I disagree with them about the content issue) and I understand the reasons for bringing this RfArb. However, I think it would be a mistake to view this as primarily a user conduct issue - although I don't doubt that there has been misconduct and disruptive editing involved in this dispute (which can be dealt with using blocks, as per normal procedure) there is still a bona fide content issue here (i.e. whether it is appropriate to say in the lead section "waterboarding is a form of torture"). Blocking the more aggressive editors won't make that issue go away. WaltonOne 15:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Jehochman

Not merely a content dispute, this is also a case about behavior problems: tendentious editing, frustration of consensus, pushing original research in the form of synthesis and fringe theories, and sock puppetry. The locus of dispute is waterboarding, a contentious political topic.

Unfortunately, I have not yet had any opportunity to edit the article, because it has been constantly protected. I had hope to advance this one to good article or featured article standards. That's why I have stated that I would not use admin powers in this dispute, though I hoped that uninvolved administrators would. [2][3] Many attempts at dispute resolution have failed, and not for lack of effort. Perhaps ArbCom can help. Jehochman Talk 19:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Lawrence Cohen

Thanks to Henrik for filing. Jehochman is correct, this is only superficially viewable as a content matter. It's a complete breakdown in understanding of NPOV, and what that means, which has led to intractable arguments, incivility, sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, vote stacking, external inadvertant disruption of Wikipedia by Harvard law students, multiple attempts by editors and admins to try everything in resolution from handing out flowers with hugs and cookies to practically beating editors with bricks now. Nothing has worked to calm this situation since the time frame of Archive 5, begining November 2007 (please read, to watch the downward beginning with the infamous "Foreign opinion is irrelevant" comment), and the closer it has moved to the beginnings of the American 2008 election cycle. Waterboarding is one of the major political hot potatoes here, along with the Iraq War. I posted this summary (please read it, if possible) last night on ANI. I noted that in the past 24-48 hours, or so, that all Hell finally did break loose on the article, article RFC, and related pages after constantly boiling. Proof that this will probably only get worse without a mandatory, enforced Arbitration article probation is the timing of this all Hell, that I just realized when I sat down to write this statement: this final outbreak of insanity and everyone apparently upping the stakes happened right after and during the Iowa and New Hampshire election primaries here. This article will only get worse between now and November and disrupt Wikipedia unless it's locked down. If the case is not taken, I'm begging you to at the least state you reject the case, but support here standard article probation, and give admins undisputed leeway to take a firm hand with this article and related for at least the next year to guard against disruption. All other mediation attempts have failed. Mediation attempts outside of the standard Mediation groups was attempted, as well as bringing in various people over a prolonged period of time via the Reliable Sources noticeboard, Fringe Theories noticeboard, NPOV talk page, Reliable sources talk page, AN, ANI, and I've lost track of where else. None have been successful.

Update: Black Kite's summary about the fact that a lot of these SPAs look, smell, geolocate and in fact use the same same IP address as User:BryanFromPalatine/User:DeanHinnen (plus have edited on Free Republic, his focus), a notorious AC-banned right wing zealot, puppetmaster, and troll, is compelling. I had made that point several times after I first noticed the notes on the 209 IP talk page, and looked into it, but various people had dismissed my concerns under AGF. I don't know if AGF holds up anymore there, seeing now that Illinois is the home of these characters. Please consider this as well. I have found extensive evidence that BryanFromPalatine is back, and want to present it as part of this arbitration. Start here, for evidence of this. Lawrence Cohen 20:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Response to User:Blue Tie's sockpuppetry witch-hunt comment: I don't think the problem here is a case of anyone acting out in a fashion as Abigail did, but rather a case of someone using many names, disrupting Wikipedia: "We are mob, for there are so many of us.". Lawrence Cohen 20:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by OtterSmith (htom)

Not an administrator; I think that this may be premature, as the RfC cited above has not been closed (and discussion continues there) and we have not tried either formal mediation or the new rules proposed. However, there is a problem and it may be possible that the ArbCom may be able to help.

There are several many things going on there.

A POV dispute 
whether the statement "Waterboarding is torture" is NPOV or POV.
A POV dispute 
whether the statement "Waterboarding is a form of torture" is NPOV or POV.
An ownership dispute 
those who support the two statements above as NPOV owning the article, or not.
A bullying dispute 
people are being "threatened" with CheckUser, ArbCon, blocking, ... and reacting badly to this. (Hint to all -- the way to build trust and good faith is not to issue threats, whether or not deserved.)
A content dispute 
what the physical process of waterboarding is. (This is what drew me into the article, I thought the process was poorly described.)
A sources dispute 
To my eye, some of the usually reliable sources are confounding waterboarding (whatever that is, it's agreed -- well, it seems to be agreed -- by all that it's not water cure) with water cure. As a result, these sources (to me) cease to be reliable about this topic. This is not about the sources being right or wrong, but that particular citation in the source is confounding two different things, and it would be SYN to claim the confounded citation supported either thing.
A political dispute 
Politicians of all stripes have been making claims about waterboarding, hoping for political advantage; within the article, how relevant are their opinions and judgments.
A popular dispute 
whether the USA's population's opinion, as polled, is relevant.

Doubtless there are more. There's a huge echo chamber there of "Buzzword is Baaaad!"; to me, it's unencyclopedic.

I fear there will be more, here, as well. htom (talk) 16:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Neon White

I was originally drawn to the article from a debate at the Reliable sources noticeboard.Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#.22Foreign_opinion_is_irrelevant.22 On entering and reading the already much discussed subject, it seemed clear that there was a handful of editors, one a simgle purpose account, trying to centre this article around the recent US controversy and to give it, in my opinion, undue weight in the article in the historical and worldwide context of waterboarding. I believe this is the core issue and some of the other disputes have been used to confuse this point. The consensus has been continually disrupted by editors continual hammering the same personal view points, misrepresenting or misunderstanding policy on NPOV refusing to verify that the dispute represents any more than a small minority of current political views, many of which are vague and non-committal and deserve any more proportion of the weight in the article. It became clear from comments that these were biased editors basing their objections on their own political views to the point of ignoring the balance of sources and the consensus. --neonwhite user page talk 17:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Blue Tie

I will discuss four areas of concern:

A. Article Content disputes
B. Sufficient naming of Arbcom participants
C. Patterns of negative behavior
D. Arbcom case not needed right now
Article Content disputes

There are two issues: 1) NPOV and 2) Poor Definition.

Expand for full statement

NOTE: I have attempted to refactor my original comments for brevity and clarity. I failed with regard to brevity. I hope I succeeded in making them more clear. --Blue Tie (talk) 13:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Hypnosadist

Please just let this POV-war end so that the article can be edited to make it better. If that is not possible then protect the article until the end of the US presidential election. (Hypnosadist) 18:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Remember

There has been a long-term ongoing debate about whether to include the words "waterboarding is torture" in some form in the lead of the article for several months now. There are people that are firmly for this statement and people that are firmly against this statement. Both sides claim to be on the side of NPOV and there seems to be no way that consensus can be reached. People positions have become inflexible,intractable, and adamantine. This has resulted in the article being completely locked for long periods of time. In addition, there has been various sketchy activity by other editors that has confounded the whole process of reaching consensus. I don't know if arbitration is the right place for this, but all other attempts at moving discussion forward between all parties has broken down. Remember (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Badagnani

I ask only one thing: that any editor or admin weighing in here first read *all* the discussion archives of the Waterboarding article. This will be a significant investment of time but without doing so the necessary context will not be sufficient to make any substantive decision about the article. I have nothing further to add, as all of what is needed is contained in the discussion archives. I respectfully ask that any editors or admins eventually making any decision regarding this article affirm that they have done so. Badagnani (talk) 19:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Inertia Tensor

It doesn't appear all active parties were notified, myself included - I have been heavily involved with this article, though have avoided it recently as in an edit warring environment I have nothing useful to offer. I have tried to keep myself on the talk page only recently so may not have appeared on the radar of the admin requesting Arb. I have also been involved in the warring before (latest series started Halloween) and have no interest in merely participating in a cyclical war - been there, seen that, learnt a few things. This isn't really a content issue as an ongoing see-saw over weight vs undue weight. It has become highly cyclical. Numerous good faith attempts by involved editors on both sides of the dispute have failed, as not all parties have been willing to work to a consensus. Some have not shown flexibility, and others have sat quietly until the article was unlocked and resumed fundamental edits without archiving consensus for the revised versions. There have been multiple RFCs, and these have helped somewhat in archiving consensus , it simply has not been enough. I'm not sure Arb will want to get involved here, however I see no other way to break the cycle as repeated good faith mediations will breakdown as the editor pool shifts over time - as has shown to be the case.

Though others would disagree, I would boil down the dispute as follows:

  • Does the possible, and not admitted opinion of someone committing the crime carry enough weight to alter what is widely accepted as torture for a long time, globally.

I believe it does not, and though such possible, but unproven disagreements by the administration are indeed noteworthy, and should continue to be mentioned lower in the article, it does not lend enough weight to overturn global consensus on the issue.

  • I have also been concerned by some obfuscation being used where the two following questions are being interchanged when selecting references to back claims that someone of note says it is not torture. (1) So and so says it is/isn't torture Vs. (2) So and so says it is/isn't acceptable in some cases, but not necessarily saying whether it is torture or not.

I request that arbcom offer guidance on WEIGHT vs UNDUE WEIGHT as it applies to this. Inertia Tensor (talk) 07:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Beware of User:Neutral Good, Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Inertia_Tensor. Inertia Tensor (talk) 07:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Ka-Ping Yee

My understanding so far is that ArbCom is for handling misbehaviour rather than settling content disputes, so I will avoid discussing content here (I have already explained my opinions on that matter on the article's talk page and RfC page in some detail).

There has been a lot of counterproductive behaviour surrounding this article, including repeated edit wars and counterproductive comments by many involved parties, some of which have made it difficult for me to continue to assume the good faith of everyone involved. Tensions are high. I believe the actions of administrators have been justified, though I feel the tone of recent responses has sometimes been a bit too harsh — probably brought on by heightened sensitivity after many weeks (months?) of disruption.

The high-bandwidth, strident debate over this single issue of whether the article can say "waterboarding is a form of torture" has consumed vast amounts of time and effort here, sucking all attention and energy away from making other productive progress on the article. I am sure it is frustrating to all involved, and I really hope we can find a way to move past this. I have tried to propose compromises, but have not succeeded. This is my first encounter with a Wikipedia dispute that has been this difficult; I hope that ArbCom can help us, if it is indeed the right body to do so, and I look forward to learning from this process. —Ka-Ping Yee (talk) 09:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by BQZip01

My original statement has been erased, so I'm going to be as succinct as possible. There is a serious POV issue here. "Waterboarding is a form of torture" is a misleading statement (as it is still under debate) and serves to push a political point of view. The sources provided contain a single source with over 100 signatures, so 147-8 is a bit misleading. No one is saying it isn't coercive, as it most certainly is, but so are other interrogation techniques (sleep deprivation, mental games, loud music, etc.). These are not exclusively defined as torture. That there is a reasonable debate is clear and it should be reflected in this article IAW WP:NPOV which supercedes WP:FRINGE and other such guidelines. A ruling and clear direction on this application of said policy & guidelines is appreciated. I am simply an editor. If ArbCom says I am wrong in my opinion, I will be happy to concede. — BQZip01 — talk 19:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

  • Accept. Content dispute? Yes. However, the circumstances surrounding this dispute seem a bit of concern to the smooth running of Wikipedia. There are clear signs of a battleground that need to be addressed. There are other issues of sockpuppetry that need to be verified as well. The involvment of a large number of users has made this dispute too hard to be solved via regular channels. Therefore, I see no reason to reject this case. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept to look primarily at edit warring and related conduct that has prevented this resolving. Whilst we will not judge the actual "answer" for the parties (content issue), we can give guidance of principle on how WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NPOV, and other relevant policies are intended to work and interact, so they can decide the answer for themselves. FT2 (Talk | email) 05:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. FloNight (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. bainer (talk) 10:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

[edit] Principles

[edit] Purpose of Wikipedia

1) Wikipedia is a project to create a neutral encyclopedia. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, publishing or promoting original research, and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Decorum

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

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editorial process

3) Wikipedia works by building consensus. This is done through the use of polite discussion—involving the wider community, if necessary—and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic, with only a few exceptions. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute resolution

4) Users should not respond to inappropriate behavior in kind, or engage in sustained editorial conflict or unbridled criticism across different forums. Editors who have genuine grievances against others are expected to avail themselves of the dispute resolution mechanism.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Content disputes

5) It is not the role of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.

Passed 6 to 0 at 14:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Locus of dispute

1) The present dispute is centered around the content of the waterboarding article (notably, the nature and definition of the term, and the question of whether or not the practice is a form of torture). It has been exacerbated by numerous instances of unseemly conduct from editors on different sides of the matter.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Remedies

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

[edit] Article probation

1) Waterboarding and all closely related pages are subject to standard article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be banned from some or all of these pages by any uninvolved administrator; editors that violate such a ban may be blocked as specified in the enforcement ruling below.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] General restriction

2) Any editor working on waterboarding or any closely related page may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. The restriction shall specify that, should the editor make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below. Before the restriction shall come into effect for a particular editor, that editor shall be given a warning with a link to this decision.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Logging of sanctions

1) All sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Waterboarding#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement by block

2) Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeated violations. After 5 blocks, the maximum block length shall increase to one year.

Passed 7 to 0 at 14:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Log of blocks and bans

Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.

[edit] User:Neutral Good

[edit] User:209.221.240.193

[edit] User:Shibumi2

[edit] User:ProtektYaSelf