Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.
Request name | Motions | Case | Posted |
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Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation | none | ( orig. case) | 7 June 2024 |
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads | none | none | 4 June 2024 |
Amendment request: India-Pakistan | none | ( orig. case) | 7 June 2024 |
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General consensus among participating Arbitrators is that nothing needs to be done at this point in time. Primefac ( talk) 20:01, 7 June 2024 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Initiated by HouseBlaster at 02:23, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Statement by HouseBlasterThe
Manual of Style and
Article title policy are jointly authorized contentious topics. Speaking for myself, I have It seems that others are also unaware (in the conventional sense) that article titles are CTOPICs; at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Persistent WP:IDONTLIKEIT behavior in WP:NCROY discussions it was about three days and 26KB of discussion before Guerrillero pointed out that article titles are already designated as a CTOP. The MOS and article titles are related, but distinct, issues. I think they should be split into seperate CTOPs to reflect the fact that they are distinct issues. House Blaster ( talk · he/him) 02:23, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Extraordinary WritSplitting the remedy is probably more trouble than it's worth. But while we're here: there hasn't been a logged sanction under this case since 2020, and that's probably because its scope is so narrow that most title- or MOS-related disruption isn't covered. Honestly there's a strong argument for just repealing it altogether, although the timing may not be right for that. An alternative would be to expand it to include RMs and the like (certainly there have been plenty of issues there), but that would give administrators an awful lot of discretion. The status quo of having the CTOP cover just the policy/guideline pages (which are often less contentious than the RMs) doesn't really make sense to me, though, and the lack of use suggests it's not doing much of value. Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 03:13, 13 May 2024 (UTC) Statement by SarekOfVulcanI would oppose splitting them, because the application of the MOS guidelines to the article titles policy was a large part of the controversy that caused me to file the case in the first place. See also Comet Hale–Bopp. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:48, 20 May 2024 (UTC) Statement by {other-editor}Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information. Article titles and capitalisation: Clerk notes
Article titles and capitalisation: Arbitrator views and discussion
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Initiated by Just Step Sideways at 22:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Two recent situations have revealed what appears to be some vagueness regarding when and if users should email private evidence to the committee, the utility of doing so when it concerns a curent on-wiki, but non-ArbCom discussion, and also if merely saying that a thread exists is not permitted.
(I seem to recall that there is a case somewhere where the committee discussed very similar issues, but I've been unable to locate it in the archives.)
I feel like this has the potantial to create a chilling effect where users will be afraid to post anything at all on off-wiki criticism sites, no matter how innocuous their posts are the topic being discussed may be, and that even mentioning the name of a thread on such a site is now forbidden, which seems a bit extreme to me.
I understand and agree that directly posting a link on-wiki to a specific post that contains outing is a clear violation of the outing policy. It is less clear to me that posting merely the name of an extremely long thread with no actual link to the thread at all is a violation. I would therefore ask that the committee clarify where the line is.
I've deliberately not named the individuals involved in these incidents as this is matter of interpretation of policy, specifically Wikipedia:Oversight. I can email more detailed information if needed but I imagine it should be fairly easy for you all to determine what I'm referring to. Just Step Sideways from this world ..... today 22:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I think it would be very interesting to hear ArbCom opinions on this question. In part, this issue comes up in the context of the 2024 RfA reform discussions heading in the direction of wanting accusations of wrongdoing against RfA candidates to be backed up with specific evidence, and the question comes up of how to provide specific evidence when it cannot be posted onsite. Does ArbCom want editors to submit such evidence about RfA candidates to ArbCom, and if so, can ArbCom respond to the evidence in a way that is sufficiently timely to be useful for RfA? -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I have lots of thoughts, but they boil down to: we will not link to (or obliquely mention) any thread with outing/doxxing; consider whether it is accessible to the public so it can be verified; and consider whether the WP user has linked themselves to the off-wiki account. If any of the 3 tests fail, then you can't bring it up at RFA (or anywhere else at WP). Sorry, the world is imperfect. Based on this, you would very often be able to discuss a Discord discussion, and very often not be able to discuss a WO discussion, but with exceptions in both cases. It seems like further details on this aren't useful until and unless I become God Emperor of WP, and can just implement it, but I can expand if someone wants. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 23:28, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I see this as a matter for the community, rather than ARBCOM. To me the heart of the matter is if, and how, we can discuss Wikipedia editors' off-wiki activities. ARBCOM has a role to play when off-wiki conduct impinges on on-wiki matters enough; typically, for harassment, collusion, or other disruption of our core purpose. The off-wiki conduct that has become a matter of discussion at RFA is very different: it isn't a violation of any of our PAGs, it is just behavior some editors find objectionable in an RFA candidate. We treat the off-wiki lives of our editors as private, and rightfully so. Discord and WPO are weird, in that they are strictly off-wiki fora populated by a large number of Wikipedians in good standing. I don't think it's an unreasonable position to take that behavior there shouldn't be immune to on-wiki scrutiny if it becomes relevant to on-wiki matters; I also don't think it's unreasonable to say that what happens off-wiki should stay there until and unless our PAGs are being violated, and then it needs to go to ARBCOM. But that's an area in which current policy seems to not cover all the contingencies, and the community needs to grapple with that. I don't see how a comment like this is useful to send to ARBCOM, or what ARBCOM could do if it was; but we're clearly unsettled as a community that it was posted, and we need to figure out guidelines for it. Vanamonde93 ( talk) 01:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree that some clarification from the committee on these matters would be helpful. This isn't entirely up to them—for example, the ban on discussing Discord discussions is the result of a community RfC and it would be inappropriate to modify it either way here—but ArbCom has historically played a role in making editors feel generally uncomfortable about linking to things off-wiki. More specifically, a 2007 remedy pronouncing that quoting private correspondence is a copyright violation is still on the books and still cited in WP:EMAILPOST. Does the current committee agree with this interpretation?
In addition, ArbCom has a responsibility to regulate the oversight team, and I've had a feeling for a long time now that they been enforce an extremely broad understanding of what constitutes "outing" that is not necessarily reflective of broader community opinion. Some direction there could also be very helpful: OS is used as "tool of first resort", or so the mantra goes, but we shouldn't underestimate how chilling it is to have an edit suppressed. – Joe ( talk) 08:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
profiles on external sites, and by extension posts associated with those profiles, can reasonably be considered "personal information". For me it's the latter that is the problem here; the former is a good rule when applied to genuine personal information. Interestingly, it's also a relatively recent addition to the harassment policy, [1] [2] following this discussion in December 2020. The reason given for the addition was to bring the policy in line with the practice of oversighters, which rather speaks to my point of the OS team pushing things in a more conservative direction, not necessarily the community as a whole. – Joe ( talk) 06:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
I'd like an opinion on this as well, not necessarily just for RFA. Specific to WP:Discord, I !voted in the Discord RFC to restrict copying and linking Discord messages. I did so based on my reading of OUTING, HARASSMENT, and the community expectations of IRC logs, rather than strictly what I'd prefer. That consideration included what Joe references about the copyright concern of "private" messages, which seems to be part of the long standing rationale around IRC messages. I've also seen several times people suggest that OUTING goes as far as covering someone outing themselves on another Wikimedia project (i.e. a user page on eswiki), meaning that's not good enough to mention here on English Wikipedia. Prior to SUL, that may well have been, but SUL is long done. So what I'm really driving at is: Where is the line on identifying yourself sufficiently to be mentioned on site? Particular to the Discord, we have OAuth integration through an open source bot hosted on WMF resources. Is this enough to count as self-disclosure? Or does the connection to Discord have to be on-site (i.e. a userbox or otherwise)? Revisiting the Discord RFC is on the community, but some of these questions, such as EMAILPOST and how OS will act, are at least partially under Arbcom as Joe notes. -- ferret ( talk) 13:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
Regarding Ferret's comments regarding disclosures on other SUL wikis. I have a vague recollection that this was discussed previously, but I don't remember where. I don't think a single hard and fast rule can be applied to that, but it's a matter of how reasonable it is to expect en.wp editors to be aware of the disclosure. For example if you make a disclosure on another wiki and you prominently link to that page from your userpage here, that should count as disclosing it here. If you disclose something on your e.g. eswiki userpage and make it clear on your userpage here that you contribute to eswiki, then again it's reasonable to take that as having been disclosed to the English Wikipedia. However, if you state something on the e.g. Russian wikisource's equivalent of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and don't link to that page here, then it has not been disclosed to the English Wikipedia. Obviously there will be many things in between the extremes that can only be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, unless you are sure it has been intentionally or obviously disclosed somewhere it is reasonable to expect English Wikipedia editors to be aware of, then assume it has not been disclosed. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:54, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
I think the community wants to have pretty firm protections against doxxing
I'd like the committee to make an explicit distinction between persons involved in the act of doxxing (or say vote canvassing or any other misconduct) on third-party sites, and persons who participate on those sites but are not abettors. It's futile to overreach and police what editors do and say outside wikipedia. Hypothetically speaking, I can say whatever I want on any third party site with a fictitious name, without any possibility of repercussion on my activity on wikipedia. Arbcom should act exclusively on cases where they find evidence of misconduct by an editor off-wiki without attaching any vicarious liability to other participants on that off-wiki platform. —
hako9 (
talk) 19:40, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
Initiated by Jéské Couriano at 16:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Over the past month or so we've been having members of the Indian Armed Forces either editing or attempting to create articles concerning military regiments in India. It's only recently come to light that this is a concerted effort by the Indian Army itself; practically all accounts involved have failed to disclose their connexions and very few have used their talk pages (and those that do tend to describe it as an order from higher up that they don't really have a choice but to obey). I'm not as concerned about the drafts, as they're G5-eligible. What I am concerned about are the pages already in mainspace that have been targeted by this campaign, such as 1889 Missile Regiment (India) and a host of others; see User:Jéské Couriano/2024 Indian Military Regiment Spam for a more complete list. I'm seeking to have the 500/30 rule apply specifically in the Indian military regiments topic area to stymie editing of this sort and to force these editors to the talk pages of the articles to make their case.
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
there's no realistic way to predict which specific article the newest sock, either registered or IP, is going to editmeans that short of applying ECP to most or all of the articles in this topic area (which isn't reasonable) WP:ARBECR doesn't seem like it would address the issue. It would, however, create more barriers to other editors who would like to edit those articles. - Aoidh ( talk) 21:09, 7 June 2024 (UTC)