Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 127: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:44, 4 June 2024

Revision as of 18:23, 8 June 2024

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:I've done some wordsmithing here. I think I can live with this restriction on this editor given their track record with deletion and related processes (which I see as including BLAR). [[User:Barkeep49|Barkeep49]] ([[User_talk:Barkeep49|talk]]) 15:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

:I think this a proportionate sanction and am willing to support it. I think some of the provided examples aren't completely damning-- I have some more expertise in music and I would say the majority of the redirects done for non-notable low charting singles and comps make sense, but there's enough questionable ones all in all to impose this given the history. My advice to TPH would be to practice merging more-- for example, I think that a redirect of ''[[Dice: Undisputed]]''-- a minor reality TV series-- to the biography of Clay is reasonable if the cited sources were used to contextualize it within his biography. [[User:Moneytrees|Moneytrees🏝️]][[User talk:Moneytrees|(Talk)]] 04:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

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== Clarification request: Extended confirmed restriction ==

:'''''[[Special:Permalink/1226220623#Clarification request: Extended confirmed restriction|Original discussion]]'''''

{{archive top|result=There is a consensus among active arbitrators that the close of the conduct discussion was correct given that the initator did not have extended confirmed and the discussion fell with-in an [[WP:ECR|extended confirmed restriction]] topic area. [[User:Barkeep49|Barkeep49]] ([[User_talk:Barkeep49|talk]]) 15:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)}}

'''Initiated by''' [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] '''at''' 13:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

;Case or decision affected

:[[WP:ARBECR]]

''List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:''

*{{admin|Ivanvector}} (initiator)

*{{admin|Valereee}}

*{{userlinks|PicturePerfect666}}

*{{userlinks|Bugghost}}

*{{userlinks|Yoyo360}}

''Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request''

<!-- All parties must be notified that the request has been filed, immediately after it is posted, and confirmation posted here. -->

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Valereee&diff=prev&oldid=1225593313 Valereee]

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:PicturePerfect666&diff=prev&oldid=1225593360 PicturePerfect666]

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bugghost&diff=prev&oldid=1225593376 Bugghost]

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Yoyo360&diff=prev&oldid=1225593393 Yoyo360]

=== Statement by Ivanvector ===

This request concerns the [[WP:ARBECR|extended confirmed restriction]] and its applicability to complaints about user conduct within an affected topic.

A few days ago, editor BugGhost initiated a complaint at ANI regarding editor PicturePerfect666's conduct in discussions at [[Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2024]] ([[Special:Permalink/1225450405#PicturePerfect666|ANI permalink]]). The complaint was entirely focused on PicturePerfect666's allegedly tendentious conduct with regard to information critical of Israel's participation in the song contest, reflective of real-world criticism and activism regarding Israel's ongoing invasion of Palestine. BugGhost specifically asked that PicturePerfect666 be topic banned. Since BugGhost is not extendedconfirmed, and the complaint entirely concerns conduct within that topic, I advised that the complaint could not proceed, but made no comment on its merit.

My rationale for closing is that non-extendedconfirmed editors are not permitted to edit in topics where ARBECR has been imposed in good faith, other than talk page edit requests, therefore (in my view) since a conduct complaint is not an edit request, it is not permitted for non-extendedconfirmed editors to file them regarding conduct within the topic, nor to comment on them. On this I would like clarification, because I agree with some implicit criticism on my talk page that it is unreasonable.

I have listed Valereee as a party because she added the contentious topics notice to the talk page on 28 December 2023 ([[Special:Diff/1192241921|diff]]), but she is not involved at all in the incidents described. PicturePerfect666 and BugGhost should be self-explanatory, and Yoyo360 is an extendedconfirmed editor who asked about "adopting" (my words) BugGhost's complaint.

-- [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (^{[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]}) 13:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

:{{ul|Sean.hoyland}} is referring to an earlier ANI filing which is also related to this same situation. An administrator not named here removed one comment by a non-EC editor from the Eurovision talk page. Seeing this, PicturePerfect666 then took it upon themselves to remove other comments from non-EC editors; Yoyo360 objected to one of their comments being removed, and that led PicturePerfect666 to file the complaint that Sean.hoyland is referring to. At the time that I reviewed that ANI complaint, Yoyo360 had 491 edits on this wiki (and as I mentioned, roughly 25,000 on French Wikipedia) and there were no other issues with their edits besides technically violating ARBECR, so it seemed to me that a reasonable way to resolve the complaint was to grant the clearly experienced editor EC "early". Had I not done so they would have been automatically granted EC by the software with 9 more edits, which they achieved later that day anyway. I don't think that this is relevant to the clarification request. [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (^{[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]}) 20:16, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

:BugGhost is very clearly a new user interested in contributing to Wikipedia in good faith, even if we don't assume they are (which is '''[[WP:AGF|still a policy]]''' by the way). We told them that they can't edit the topic they're interested in (a ''music competition'', of all things) until they have 500 edits. They accepted that and went off to find something else to do, and now we're saying "oh, those 500 edits aren't the right kind of edits, do 500 more". And their response to that is still not complaining, they're just asking what they can do better. Well, what is it, then? Or are we just going to let them flail about the project for a while until they ask again and we still say no? How many more edits are we going to demand before we accept that they're [[WP:HERE|here to contribute]]? How long before their already exemplary patience runs out, and they decide Wikipedia isn't worth the effort? What is the point of this exercise if it's not [[moving the goalposts]] just so that a genuinely interested new user can't participate? And for ''what''? ECR is meant to prevent disruption, just like all of our enforcement mechanisms; our rules are [[WP:IAR|not meant to be enforced just because they exist]], and no rule should exist in the first place if it's only used to gatekeep portions of the encyclopedia to users we individually approve. This policing of new users' edits isn't teaching anyone anything other than that Wikipedia hates new users, and it's doing ''far more'' harm to the project than any newbie with a spellchecker has ever done nor will do.

:{{yo|Bugghost}} I am sorry for my role in this [[WP:EDITCOUNTITIS|pointless focus on your edit count]] overshadowing your genuine complaint about an (allegedly) properly disruptive user. You're not the problem here. The Wikipedia that I've given nearly 15 years to is better than this, and it will be there waiting for you on the other side. [[User:Ivanvector|Ivanvector]] (^{[[User talk:Ivanvector|Talk]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/Ivanvector|Edits]]}) 18:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

=== Statement by Valereee ===

=== Statement by PicturePerfect666 ===

=== Statement by Bugghost ===

As the newbie here that this request is concerning, I'm not completely certain what kind of comment is expected of me here, so I apologise if anything I say is irrelevant or out of scope.

Before writing the AN/I, I looked at the ARBECR guidelines and didn't see any wording that said that my filing was against the spirit of it. My interpretation was that AN/I wasn't a page related to any specific contentious topic, and the filing I was making was about a specific user's conduct, not about the contentious topic itself, and so it wasn't against the spirit of the restriction. I still stand by that - I made sure that my filing did not in any way weigh in on arguments of the related contentious topic at hand, just the behaviour of the user as shown by their edits. My filing was neutral on the contentious topic itself, without editorialising and without any discussion of assumed motive behind the behaviour - only their edits were brought forward.

A consequence from this closure is that raising an AN/I about someone who is being disruptive on a contentious issue is harder than raising an AN/I about someone who is being disruptive on a non-contentious issue. If PicturePerfect666's disruptive behaviour on the Eurovision page was instead about a different topic (say, [[Eurovision 2024#Dutch_entry_disqualification|the Dutch entrant's surprise disqualification]]), then an AN/I filing from myself would have gone ahead, because that part of the page is not under the ARBECR. But seeing as they were disruptive about a contentious issue, they have been able to deflect my concerns - which seems counter to the ARBECR's aims of reducing disruption on contentious topics.

I think that the ARBECR is a good idea but can be hard to interpret, and has the ability to dismiss reasonable well intentioned actions. In my view, it can contradict the "assume good faith" mantra, as assumption that I filed the AN/I accurately and in good faith was "trumped" by the fact my edit count being too low. As I said on IvanVector's talk page, I spent a long amount of time compiling a long list of the user's disruptive behaviour for the filing, including very specific diffs to outline each example, and it being dismissed based wholly on my edit count was very demoralising. As backed up by Yoyo360 suggestion to "adopt" it, the AN/I has some merits worth considering. [[User:Bugghost|<span style="border-radius:3px 0 0 3px;padding:2px 3px;background:#ff7048;color:#fff">'''BugGhost'''</span>]][[User talk:Bugghost|<span style="border:1px solid #ff7048;border-radius:0 5px 5px 0;padding:2px;color:#000">🎤</span>]] 16:07, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

:RE: @[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen]]'s gaming concerns - I have been doing typo fixing recently, but it's worth noting that I started doing this on the 24th of May (not on the 19th, the day I received the EC notification, as was suggested). After I received the EC notification, I simply stopped interacting with the Eurovision talk page, as was suggested by the admin that posted it, and focused on my editing priorities (mainly the [[Windows Presentation Foundation|WPF]] article, as @[[User:Novem Linguae|Novem Linguae]] mentioned in their comment - which is where I have spent the vast majority of my time as an editor, far more than Eurovision or typo-fixing).

:I want to stress that I have been doing these typo changes as a real task and in good faith. It's true that before this I hadn't done any large-scale spelling based changes, but as a relatively new user, I have been doing a lot of "firsts" recently.

:I wasn't doing these changes in secret - I added this mission to my [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Bugghost&diff=prev&oldid=1225800033 userpage], added it to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adopt-a-typo/I_Just_Found_A_Home&diff=prev&oldid=1225790984 adopt-a-typo] page, have [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pre-determined_overhead_rate&diff=prev&oldid=1225796845 suggested a page with 'pre-determined' in the title to be moved], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dashing50&diff=prev&oldid=1225589015 gave advice to a new editor who was prone to typos]. I was under the impression that this was a regular Wikipedia-editor task, based on the adopt-a-typo page, the wikignome page, and seeing other editors with repeated spell-checking edits in their user contribs.

:I know how this will sound given the circumstances, but I actually stopped doing typo changes yesterday (when I was at roughly 450 edits) because I thought if I hit 500 while this situation was happening it would only complicate matters, and went back to [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Counter-Strike%202&diff=prev&oldid=1225803434 slower-paced editing] instead in order to ''not'' become extended confirmed. I also have no desperate need to hit 500, because PP666 has not been disruptive since the AN/I was filed, and it sounds like Yoyo360 would have "re-raised" my AN/I whether I became EC or not, and overall the Eurovision page is solving the disruption problems without any input from me. I started typo-fixing ''after'' the point "gaming the system" would have been useful to me.

:Regarding whether "pre-determined" is a typo - I researched it to double check prior to fixing, and found multiple sources implying that it should be unhyphenated as one word [http://www.pennmedicinedevelopment.com/style-guide/punctuation-2] [https://community.cochrane.org/style-manual/grammar-punctuation-and-writing-style/prefixes], and similarly for "pre-suppose", as the rule (as I understand), is that you hyphenate "pre-" only when the following word begins with an E or I sound, or if it's a new compound not itself in the dictionary (eg. "pre-dinner snack"). I do 100% understand Bishonen's concerns though, and seeing as there's questions about my motives, and whether it's even a typo, I won't resume these edits until I get some go-ahead that it's ok to do.

:[[User:Bugghost|<span style="border-radius:3px;padding:2px 3px;background:#ff7048;color:#fff;">BugGhost</span>]][[User talk:Bugghost|🪲👻]] 15:34, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

=== Statement by Yoyo360 ===

I don't have much to add actually. I don't edit much on wiki:en, I'm mostly watching the talk pages of the Eurovision wikiproject to inspire me on the French-language counterpart (which is quasi inactive). I only come in when discussions have relevance for topics I also could add on wiki:fr and I noticed PP666 behaviour in the past weeks. I concur with everything BugGhost noted in their AN/I, they argued the case way better than I ever could. Noticing the topic had been closed due to the extended confirmed restrictions, I put myself forward to push the AN/I to be treated (as I now have the EC status on wiki:en) asking if it could be reopened in my name. I even have a few things to add to it but that's rather minor compared to the rest and off-topic here I think. [[User:Yoyo360|Yoyo360]] ([[User talk:Yoyo360|talk]]) 15:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

=== Statement by Selfstudier ===

{{tq|My rationale for closing is that non-extendedconfirmed editors are not permitted to edit in topics where ARBECR has been imposed in good faith, other than talk page edit requests, therefore (in my view) since a conduct complaint is not an edit request, it is not permitted for non-extendedconfirmed editors to file them regarding conduct within the topic, nor to comment on them}} That is my experience, see [[Wikipedia:Administrators%27 noticeboard/Archive356#Selfstudier]] "As a non-EC editor, you essentially have no standing to make edits related to the topic. You can make an edit request, but any other editor can remove it, even without providing reason. Further, making a complaint against another editor as a non-EC editor in the WP:ARBPIA area is fully not allowed."· So I would agree, it's only logical. [[User:Selfstudier|Selfstudier]] ([[User talk:Selfstudier|talk]]) 14:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

=== Statement by Sean.hoyland ===

I think the closing was entirely appropriate and I agree with Selfstudier's statement. However, I think it is fair to say that [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1225450405#User:Yoyo360_Ignoring_of_page_restriction_after_warning_by_admin the situation with respect to Yoyo360] at the time of the complaint posted by PicturePerfect666 at ANI is more complicated than "Yoyo360 is an extendedconfirmed editor". They were granted the privilege early (from an enwiki perspective) because, as the log says, they are a "10-year-old user with over 25,000 edits across all projects". This seems reasonable, pragmatic and it resolved the issue (although I'm sure imaginative people could cite it as yet another example of anti-Israel bias or rewarding complainers etc.), but for me, it's another reminder that none of us really know (based on evidence) the best way to implement/enforce EC restrictions in ARBPIA, how strictly they should be implemented, and that there is a lot of (costly) subjectivity and fuzziness involved at the moment. This is by no means a criticism or an endorsement of anything that happened in that thread by the way. I have no idea how to figure out how EC rules should work in practice to produce the best result. [[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] ([[User talk:Sean.hoyland|talk]]) 16:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

On gaming, as far as I can tell (in ARBPIA anyway), the notion of gaming to acquire the EC privilege only becomes useful after a person has become extendedconfirmed and you can see what they did with it. Statements about potential gaming before someone has reached 500 edits are usually not verifiable (e.g. unreliable inferences about intent) and not based on agreed methods to reliably distinguish between gaming edits and normal edits (probably because we can't really do that without the benefit of post-EC hindsight). It's true that gaming happens in ARBPIA and that the gaming vs non-gaming signals can sometimes be distinguished, e.g. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yV0VAguCmZ-Qn-ud7HToexIZ0sNluEJM here], where all of the plots that look like gaming, anonymized ARBPIA editors 2,5,6 and 7, are for editors blocked as sockpuppets. But regardless, I don't think there is much utility in raising gaming questions until after someone becomes extendedconfirmed and there is post-EC activity evidence to look at. To do so asks questions that can't be answered without a lot of handwaving fuzziness about revision size, necessity, constructiveness, gnoming-ness, character witness-like statements etc. AGF until there is a reason not to seems like the best approach to gnoming-like pre-EC edits. [[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] ([[User talk:Sean.hoyland|talk]]) 07:33, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll add some quick responses to Ivanvector's kindness and frustration from a different perspective (as someone only active in ARBPIA nowadays, and not to make content edits).

* "no rule should exist in the first place if it's only used to gatekeep portions of the encyclopedia to users we individually approve." - [[WP:SOCK]] could be considered to be an example of such a rule. Many of the "interested in contributing to Wikipedia"/collateral damage-type arguments used against ARBECR could also be used against SOCK if you only consider the edits and exclude value judgements of the person making the edits. But the SOCK rule is enforced pretty consistently even though it is often much harder to tell whether someone is a sock than whether they are extendedconfirmed or their action complies with ARBECR, and even though it is probably not possible to measure whether blocking socks has a net positive or net negative impact on content etc.

* "it's doing far more harm to the project than..." This might be true, but I've not seen any evidence that anyone knows how to measure it. I have a more positive view, probably because I'm only active in ARBPIA where the costs of not having or not enforcing the rules are obvious. To me, the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, with the caveat that most of the harm is probably not visible. The rules also introduce new costs because, although 'edit request' points at [[WP:EDITXY]], what constitutes an edit request is, in practice, in the eye of the beholder. This might be bad, or good. Hard to tell.

* I think ToBeFree's view that "This may be unfair or unreasonable in individual cases without being a general problem" applies to the arbitration remedies for ARBPIA in general.

* If there are better solutions, they could be proposed and tested. [[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] ([[User talk:Sean.hoyland|talk]]) 13:54, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

===Statement by Bishonen===

After Bugghost was informed on May 19 about the EC restriction on [[Eurovision Song Contest 2024]] and [[Special:Diff/1224561182|told]] they had "nowhere near 500 edits", they have started what looks like an attempt to game the 500 edits restriction by doing a lot of simple spelling corrections and are by this means now rapidly approaching the 500. In many cases the changes aren't even corrections — they changed the form ''pre-determined'' to ''predetermined'' in hundreds of articles yesterday, even though both forms are acceptable, and similarly changed lots of instances of ''pre-suppose'' to ''presuppose'', where also both forms are acceptable. They made no spelling-"correction" edits before they were made aware of the EC rule for the Arab–Israeli conflict. I like to AGF, but this is ridiculous. See [[WP:GAME]]. [[User:Bishonen|Bishonen]] &#124; [[User talk:Bishonen|tålk]] 10:40, 27 May 2024 (UTC).

===Statement by Novem Linguae===

Bugghost has been rewriting the article [[Windows Presentation Foundation]] over the last week or so. In my mind he is a talented newer editor that is doing good content creation and article cleanup work. In light of the gaming concerns above, I'd like to make sure the positive aspects of this editor are also considered. Thank you. –[[User:Novem Linguae|<span style="color:blue">'''Novem Linguae'''</span>]] <small>([[User talk:Novem Linguae|talk]])</small> 11:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

=== Statement by {other-editor} ===

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.

<!-- * Please copy this section for the next person. * -->

=== Extended confirmed restriction: Clerk notes ===

:''This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).''

*

=== Extended confirmed restriction: Arbitrator views and discussion ===

*One of the issues that led to ECR applying the way it does in this topic area were attempts by new accounts to weaponize our enforcement mechanisms. So while Eurovision 2024 as a whole does not, in my opinion, fall into ECR, edits relating to Israel's participation does as it is clearly [[WP:BROADLY]] construed in the topic area. As such non-ECR may not make enforcement requests There's also the past precedent of ArbCom granting ECR to people it was permitting to participate in an arbitraton process that would otherwise be ECR. [[User:Barkeep49|Barkeep49]] ([[User_talk:Barkeep49|talk]]) 15:52, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

*:Beyond what others have stated, let's not lose eye on the ball here: if there is gaming (and I agree on the whole with the analysis that there is ''not'') it's to edit a particular part of a Eurovision article and not say [[Israel–Hamas war]]. I'm not pretending that there is nothing contentious about Israel's participation in Eurovision 2024 but even with a contentious topic area there are differing levels of things. [[User:Barkeep49|Barkeep49]] ([[User_talk:Barkeep49|talk]]) 18:54, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

*The closure text at [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1225450405#PicturePerfect666] appears to be correct. This may be unfair or unreasonable in individual cases without being a general problem to me. [[User:ToBeFree|&#126; ToBeFree]] ([[User talk:ToBeFree|talk]]) 00:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

*I agree with my colleagues above: The ECR restriction is to prevent weaponization. It is also to encourage new users to get experience with Wikipedia policies and processes before filing accusations. If someone with ECR wants to adopt it, that is their prerogative, but they will also take responsibility for the filing. I have no concerns with this Ivanvector's close at ANI. I agree that Eurovision 2024 as a whole is not under ARBECR, but topics about Israel/Palestine are. {{u|Bugghost}} I encourage you to return to editing at a quicker pace if you desire, as you obtaining the ECR user right while this is open will not concern me. [[User:Z1720|Z1720]] ([[User talk:Z1720|talk]]) 16:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

*Concur with the views above; I would just add that as I see it I do entirely agree with Ivanvector's statement that {{tqq|BugGhost is very clearly a new user interested in contributing to Wikipedia in good faith}}. [[User:Firefly|<span style="color:#850808;">firefly</span>]] <small>( [[User talk:Firefly|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/Firefly|c]] )</small> 18:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

*{{ec}} I also agree with my colleagues, and am concerned as Ivanvector is that participants here are moving the goalposts inappropriately. It was a policy-backed close of an otherwise good-faith report from an editor who is well-meaning but has not yet met the Extended Confirmed level of participation. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 18:45, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

*The way the restriction is currently worded and the way it is handled in practice (for example granting EC so that editors can participate in case requests) is in line with how Ivanvector closed the AN/I report. The first sentence in [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1156#PicturePerfect666|the report]] establishes that [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles|PIA]] is a major factor of the AN/I report itself, falling within [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles#Definition of the "area of conflict"|its scope]]. - [[User:Aoidh|Aoidh]] ([[User talk:Aoidh|talk]]) 19:17, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

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