Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zephram Stark/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for work by Arbitrators and comment by the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies, please place proposed items you have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

Motion to Grant Equal Editing Rights to All Editors

I propose the following, that: Wikipedia shall adopt as its highest principle that all editors have equal editing power; all administrative and bureaucratic tools shall be used exclusively to ensure this principle; specific rules shall be adopted to limit administrative corruption and to demote administrators who abuse their tools; among these rules shall be that administrators cite a specific rule when a person is blocked with enough evidence that an independent party can verify the reason for the block, and that when administrators fail to do so, that they shall be demoted. --Zephram Stark 17:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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1. There is no point in proposing a motion that the arbitrators have no ability to grant. This applies to all the rest of your soapboxing below. – Smyth\^talk 11:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
2. I think the arbitrators could at least request that the administrators involved cite one of the rules when blocking someone. --Zephram Stark 22:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Motion to Create a Wikiproject to Study Contribution Based Voting

In a perfect consensus based system, respect should be high enough that voting would never needed. Because we never achieve perfect respect for each other, however, sometimes a vote is called for. Revert wars, for instance are essentially a type of voting when consensus has failed. Also, voting to demote administrators is the only feasible method proposed to stem administrator corruption. Yet, any type of voting immediately raises the questions, "Who is worthy to vote?" and "How heavily should their vote be counted?" The root issue of this arbitration goes to these questions. No problem would have existed if SlimVirgin and Jayjg had not blocked over a dozen people with the stated accusation of their being "sockpuppets." Yet, the only ligitimate concern about sockpuppets is that they would influence voting. Since there is apparently no method for someone to prove their innocence of a faulty sockpuppet charge, we must find a method of voting that does not give an advantage to sockpuppets. If we can do that one thing, legitimate concerns about sockpuppets will disappear. I propose that we create a Wikiproject to study the development of a system to create weights for user votes based on some method of calculated positive contributions. Such a algorithm might be a recursively-weighted user based method of signifying that an edit is useful, similar to what is done manually at netflix.com or automatically at google.com. Or, the algorithm might simply count up the number of words added that were not deleted or reverted over a ten day period and average it with long-term contributions. (This last method would encourage development of less exotic articles.) The most important aspect of unbiased voting, of course, would be the addition of a tool to allow secret ballot voting. I'm sure we all agree that consensus is better than voting, but the ability to cast secret ballots and express opinions without being labeled a sockpuppet is an essential tool needed in our quest for consensus. --Zephram Stark 03:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Motion to Allow For Minority Resource Creation When Consensus Cannot be Reached

I submit that there is no way to achieve consensus unless we allow for non-consensus. If a black-and-white decision must be made in every case, "consensus" becomes nothing but a vote, so why call it anything else? Why fool ourselves into thinking that we can achieve consensus here at Wikipedia? What happens when a minority interest truly believes that the majority opinion is factually incorrect? Can the minority interest keep the majority definition from becoming the article? Would it be consensus if it could? Would this issue be any different if we called consensus a 60% majority or even a 55% majority. Of course not.

In the end Wikipedia:Consensus has only one implementation, a 50.0001% majority rule. Administrators can always step in to "apply common sense", but does that improve consensus? It does if editors respect the opinions of those administrators over their own. From what I can tell, gaining that respect is the goal of many administrators here, but is that goal achievable? Will Wikipedia editors ever become truly subservient to the whims of administrators? I submit that they will not, and I offer an alternative to this increasingly absurd path: the possibility for non-consensus to exist.

Viable non-consensus allows consensus to happen. Only when one has a practicable choice to go against popular opinion can he feel free and part of the community at the same time. This sense of combined liberty and social responsibility allows people to weigh the two often-conflicting conclusions they reach when considering each separately. If they are still part of the community, a person will generally weigh their social responsibility very heavily, and only opt for something else when it is blatantly false or against the good of the whole.

Implementation of real consensus can only come when there is a third alternative to adoption of a majority article or adoption of a minority article. When someone has a specific phrasing that they feel is better than the one adopted by the general community, and they will not yield to the wording of the majority, there must be an easy way to identify and view that alternate wording from the main article. This link should not detract from the main article, but it must be clearly identified and allow for the fact that the dispute may never be settled. If such a program were implemented, it would raise our "consensus" threshold from, realistically, the 50.0001% that it is now to 95% or better. More importantly, it would allow us to quantify exactly what we mean by Wikipedia:Consensus, thereby reducing arbcom wars and vandalism (the only current methods of minority expression) while elevating the respectability of Wikipedia.

Responsibility is inextricably tied to decision making. When an institution grows to the size that the people feel stewardship for its success, they are necessarily bound to also influence decision making. Wikipedia has grown to this size. It belongs to the people. Recognizing this fact and enabling people to express themselves without treading on the rights of others will preserve its existence as it grows into the world's greatest resource of information. I know your views on giving more power to the people have been skeptical, but I hope I've presented the beginning of an implementation that addresses both a reduction in vandalism and relief for the overworked arbitration committee, while also increasing the viability of information retrieved from Wikipedia. --Zephram Stark 03:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed final decision

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Civility

1) Wikipedia requires reasonable courtesy toward other users, including assumption of good faith on their part, see Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume good faith

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1. Violation of these principles involves more than one party Fred Bauder 17:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Neutral point of view

2) The central policy of Wikipedia, the pole star, is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view which contemplates inclusion of an article of fair statements of all significant points of view on the subject.

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1. As per my evidence, neutral content is impossible where administrators are willing to use their power to bias the article unless people like me FuelWagon stand up for the NPOV of the article. We succeeded in neutralizing most of the article on terrorism, despite the extreme efforts of SlimVirgin and Jayjg. The examples section is obviously still POV, however. The opinions expressed are not cited, or even internally consistent with any definition of terrorism. If you want to see exactly what the real issue here is, just try using a non-admin login to introduce a Neutral Point of View in the Examples section of Terrorism. --Zephram Stark 23:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed findings of fact

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Focus of dispute

1) The focus of this dispute is the article terrorism which according to Zephram Stark deteriorated due to the aggressive editing and other actions of Jayjg and SlimVirgin. He has waged a campaign to restore what he considers an adequate article, free of the complex ambiguities introduced by his opponents, see Talk:Terrorism/Archive_6#NPOV_solutions and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zephram_Stark/Evidence#ZS.27s_changes_to_Terrorism.

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1. Even more specifically, the issue was about the content of the introduction section of terrorism. Thanks to Stevertigo and Hipocrite, the version that Jayjg and SlimVirgin were willing to block people to protect no longer exists. When administrators resort to calling people sockpuppets to block them in order to protect an introduction like this, something needs to be done. If you look through the 8 pages of archives you can see that nothing short of what I did was effective. Even though I succeeded and terrorism now has a definition that conveys information, I am not willing to go through that again for an article. Unless you want Wikipedia to be controlled by a few powerful admins, you have to demote the ones who blatantly use their power to belittle other editors and promote their POV in articles. --Zephram Stark 23:30, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Ethnic slurs

2) Frustrated by opposing editors Zephram Stark, made an edit on his talk page referring to them as "fucking Jews" [1].

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1. Not sure on what basis he decides that Jewish ethnicity has anything to do with anything. Fred Bauder 21:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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1. That accusation is pretty funny, since both of my parents have Jewish ethnicity. --Zephram Stark 23:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Struggle over Noam Chomsky's perspective

3) Some of the latest struggle over content of the article has revolved about this information:

Noam Chomsky, senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, says that "the U.S. itself is a leading terrorist state." After President Bush declared a "War on Terrorism," Chomsky stated:

The U.S. is officially committed to what is called “low–intensity warfare.” [...] If you read the definition of low–intensity conflict in army manuals and compare it with official definitions of “terrorism” in army manuals, or the U.S. Code, you find they’re almost the same. [2]

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1. The above quote is from the existing version of terrorism Fred Bauder 17:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Initial insertion

3.1) This information was initially inserted by FuelWagon in this edit [3] as

Some maintain that the USA is the leading state terrorist government. Noam Chomsky states [4]

The U.S. is officially committed to what is called “low–intensity warfare.” That’s the official doctrine. If you read the definition of low–intensity conflict in army manuals and compare it with official definitions of “terrorism” in army manuals, or the U.S. Code, you find they’re almost the same.

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1. This represents Fuelwagon putting his oar into an article he had previously not been involved in after noticing the Request for comment regarding Zephram Stark, essentially a provocation. Fred Bauder 19:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Reverts

3.2) This information, from a prominent, if minor, critic of state terrorism, was immediately reverted by Texture with the comment, "rm addition of USA as state terrorism based on flismy support" [5]. A series of niggling objections follow as well as an extensive discussion on the talk page, see Talk:Terrorism#how_great_Chomsky_is

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1. The provocateur succeeds Fred Bauder 19:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Reverts

4) Zephram Stark has removed others comments from article talk pages [6].

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1. Isolated instance or regular pattern? Fred Bauder 19:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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1. Every time we started making progress toward a definitive introduction, Jayjg and his cohorts would interrupt the discussion with personal attacks and attempts to belittle other editors. After trying to move Commodor Sloat and Jayjg's personal attacks to a more appropriate section and having them moved right back, I simply deleted them. They didn't have any relevance to the discussion except to end it. As long as those attacks were there, nobody else would contribute. --Zephram Stark 23:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Extended disruption

5) Zephram Stark's editing of terrorism is marked by dogged persistence and lengthy argument. Opponents are many, supporters few, see Talk:Terrorism/Archive_6#NPOV_solutions.

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1. An attempt to characterize the global situation Fred Bauder 21:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Use of sockpuppets

6) Zephram Stark has apparently used a number of sockpuppets in pursuit of his editing objectives, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Zephram_Stark#Evidence_of_disputed_behavior rather clear example.

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Proposed 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.

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Ban for ethnic slurs

1) Zephram Stark is banned for one month due to making ethnic slurs.

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1. Based on one egregious incident Fred Bauder 14:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Probation

2) Zephram Stark is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any article the editing of which he disrupts by lengthy argumentation.

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1. Based on editing style, not the various contentions, right or wrong, made in terrorism Fred Bauder 21:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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No sockpuppets

2) Zephram Stark shall use one account, not using anonymous ips, except as it may occur accidently.

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1. Although perhaps difficult to enforce, I think that Zephram should be prohibited from using meatpuppets to support his views. On several occasions, an account's first edits were made to support Zephram's contentions. Zephram often challenged admins to check the ___location of IPs, leading me to believe some of these users were, in fact, meatpuppets. Carbonite | Talk 14:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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Enforcement by ban

1) Zephram Stark may be briefly banned (up to a week in the case of repeat offenses) from Wikipedia should he edit any article or talk page from which he is banned under the terms of Wikipedia:Probation

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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General discussion

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