Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 5 (balanced editing restriction)	none	(orig. case)	29 April 2025
Amendment request: Topic banned	Motion	(orig. case)	18 April 2025
Clarification request: Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure	none	none	30 April 2025

Arbitrator motions

Motion name	Date posted
Smallangryplanet and Lf8u2	26 April 2025

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Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 5 (balanced editing restriction)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Initiated by Tamzin at 20:50, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Palestine-Israel articles 5 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

• Tamzin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]

Statement by Tamzin (BER)

I was asked by clerk SilverLocust and arb theleekycauldron to post this clarification request based on inconclusive discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks/archive 11 § BER edge case and, I'm told, on the mailing list. There are two questions here:

1. How should the BER handle a case where a page is moved from a qualifying namespace (article/talk/draft/draft talk) into another, or vice versa, after a user edits it?
2. Depending on the answer to #1, how should this be tracked?

My view is that the current wording of the BER, at least, means we should only consider the time-of-edit namespace. Yes, this does leave some room for gaming by drafting in userspace and then mainspacing something, but 1) the BER is already a fairly gameable restriction and that is arguably by design, given that it's not that strict a sanction, and 2) there's still the edit made to mainspace when the page is moved, so really all this does is consolidates a bunch of edits by the same user to one edit, which isn't unreasonable.

If this is the Committee's interpretation as well, however, this creates an implementation problem, as it is prohibitively complicated to manually check for cross-namespace moves (XNMs) for every page, extant or deleted, a user has edited in the past 30 days, and—as much as I intend to keep toolforge:n-ninety-five working—the BER's implementation shouldn't be dependent on an external tool. The current instructions at WP:UBER § Tracking for manually tracking without regard to XNMs are a bit tedious, but still something that any person could do in a few minutes. Fully tracking XNMs would increase that by at least an order of magnitude.

The current advice I've given at UBER, as an addendum to the manual checking instructions, is

It is very rare for a draft or article to be moved to a namespace other than draft, article, or user, so checking a user's contributions and deleted contributions to userspace and usertalkspace (looking only at subpages) should suffice to avoid the too-high[-percentage] scenario. To avoid the too-low scenario, look through the user's edit filter hit log on-wiki ... while using a CSS rule that highlights redirects, then check where those redirects go.

This approach, in other words, is almost complete, but much faster than an actual page-by-page check. I just tried it on an arbitrarily-selected ARBPIA regular, and it took about a minute for the too-high check and a few seconds for the too-low check—not much to an ask of an admin doing the last step of quality control before imposing a sanction. If ArbCom can endorse this approach (i.e., say that an admin who does this almost-complete check has done their due diligence), with extremely rare exceptions to be handled ad hoc, then I think we can resolve this. If not, then I return to my previous argument in favor of an edit filter that tracks every edit to qualifying namespaces by users under BERs. (If discussion goes in that direction, we should ping participants in this EFN thread, but I'll hold off for now since this may be resolvable without reöpening that can of worms.)

N95, meanwhile, could either do the same quick-and-dirty check as the humans (easier to code), or do an exhaustive search for XNMs (harder to code, so may have to wait a bit due to my current limited availability). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:58, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

@Eek: I agree that most cases of a false negative would be gaming and sanctionable as such; even if not, false negatives aren't nearly as much a concern as false positives. But I can easily see how an FP could occur: Suppose a BER'd user makes 20 ARBPIA edits in a month, while making 80 edits about some band or something, and not editing anything else in qualifying namespaces. The band's article goes to AfD, and the user requests userfication in lieu of deletion, which is granted. Their actual BER percentage is 20%, but N95 and the current manual checking instructions will say 100%. So I think at least some instruction to admins to check for this edge case is merited. I don't have a strong opinion on how comprehensive that instruction should be; I'd be fine with something as minimal as "take a quick glance at their userspace contribs". (And I mean technically I can just do that, since UBER is an essay and N95 is an unofficial tool, but I'd like for whatever they say to reflect ArbCom's opinion.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:20, 6 April 2025 (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.

Palestine-Israel articles 5: Clerk notes

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

Palestine-Israel articles 5: Arbitrator views and discussion

• This had previously come up on the clerks list, where I said "Moving a page across spaces seems like an edge case that it isn't worth solving for. If it becomes an issue, we can use IAR and some common sense. Creating an entire edit filter just for an edge case is ineffecient overkill. Frankly, if someone is going over 30% because of moving one page, then they probably shouldn't be editing as much in that area anyway." If someone is moving things across namespaces to get around the restriction, that's WP:GAMING and they should get slapped down for it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

  My hope with this restriction was that it would use minimal bandwidth. In these edge cases, I would prefer the burden be on the person with the restriction to say "actually, my number is high because of XYZ." Like, if an admin has prima facie evidence that an editor has violated the BER because N95 shows their number is off, then the burden shifts to the editor to prove that the number is wrong. I'd prefer not to have to legislate that, lest we further instruction creep. Nothing prevents an admin from being like "hmmm wonder what's up with the N95 number, 100% seems wrong," and doing further research, but I don't want to order them to investigate and waste a bunch of time, when the editor themselves can just offer an explanation. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

• While I agree with CaptainEek, I'm also fine with endorsing the proposed approach. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:49, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• I wasn't involved in the drafting of this remedy, but I think if it's going to have any chance of being effective it has to be as lightweight as possible. If that means overlooking things drafted in userspace for filter purposes, that's fine. I'm sure it'll be brought to an admin's or AE's attention that there is gaming if all the only edits outside of their userspace are to ARBPIA. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• An article may have been userfied without their knowledge (e.g. an article deleted via AfD restored for another editor), so admins considering a sanction for violating the balanced editing restriction (especially while this is a new practice) should ideally keep this and other edge cases in mind and give the editor a reasonable chance to explain why it may be a different percentage than they may have thought. - Aoidh (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• Agree with SFR. Katie^talk 17:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
• I was of the opinion that we should be counting copy-pasted drafts as multiple edits, but in the interest of keeping it lightweight, i've come around to the at-time-of-edit interpretation. However we implement that – bot, edit filter, honor system – works for me, although my preference would be something automated. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 19:48, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• I'm on the lightweight automation side (per SFR) - I want automation to take out the heavy lifting for admins, but admins still need to think - and if the edge cases come up, they should be capable of making those decisions. Let's not try to solve every plausible but unlikely scenario. Worm^TT(talk) 10:00, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Agree fully with SFR and Worm - lightweight is key here. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Topic banned

Initiated by Noleander at 14:25, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Noleander arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander#Noleander_topic-banned

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

• Noleander (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

• WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander#Noleander_topic-banned
  • Terminate the topic ban

Statement by Noleander

• Over the years, I've encountered several articles that needed some improvement, and I was ready & willing, but was not able to proceed due to the topic ban. It would be nice to be able to improve the encyclopedia in those situations.
• @CaptainEek That was a long time ago ... but I think the biggest change following the topic ban was that I began to get consensus in the Talk page of articles before making any edits. I do that as a matter of habit for all articles on contentious subjects, or articles that are monitored by passionate editors. A recent example is the mathematics article pi where I wanted to make some innocuous improvements, but I knew the article was heavily watched, so I announced my intentions in the talk page and asked for input before I began making the edits. On the other hand, if I'm contemplating a benign edit on an obscure article, I'll generally make the edit directly without first posting on the Talk page. To answer another question you all may have: No, there are no specific edits I'm intending to make within the topic ban subject area. The reason I am now asking for the topic ban to be terminated is because I recently rewrote the Margaret Sanger article and got it promoted to FA status. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that her first husband was Jewish. I panicked for a moment, but figured that it did not run afoul of the topic ban since he is barely mentioned in the article. But it would nice to not have to worry about that in the future. [PS: If my reply is supposed to be up in the "Statements" area, feel free to move it up there] Noleander (talk) 17:37, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• @Aoidh I agree with the decision that the Arbitration Committee made back then. I respect the encyclopedia and the processes that have been established over the years. From day one, I've respected WP policies (NPOV, UNDUE, VERIFIABILITY, etc). I've always - even back early 2000s - enjoyed working collaboratively on Talk pages to reach consensus, because every editor brings their own unique perspective to WP, and that is a good thing. I'm not a belligerent, edit-warring kind of editor. Regarding the Topic Ban, if I recall correctly, back then I'd visit some topics and notice: "This article was written by apologists and omits some important information" or "Hey, this article is overly positive" or "Why doesn't this article have a 'Criticism of' section?" My goal, when encountering such articles, was to achieve balance by, for example, adding material that shed light on negative aspects of the topic. My intention was never to flip the balance to be overly negative. Unfortunately, in spite of my respect for the NPOV and UNDUE polices, there were times that I went too far, and put in too much negative information. If I was on the ArbCom, I would have made the same decision that they did. Today, if I encountered – what I perceived to be – an unbalanced article, I would go to the Talk page first, and start a conversation on achieving balance. If a consensus could not be achieved, I'd suggest an RfC, and then go from there. Noleander (talk) 00:59, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• Eluchil404 wrote "... they have recently become active again after a long period of inactivity." I'm not sure if they are trying to suggest that I've been sulking since the topic ban, and just recently resurfaced with nefarious purposes? The facts are: after the topic ban was imposed, I've made over 30,000 edits, promoted five (5) articles to FA; promoted seven (7) articles to GA; received about 20 barnstars; created about 40 new articles; and helped scores of editors by reviewing their articles. All of that work was after the topic ban was imposed. The vast majority of those achievements were in the 2010's, following the topic ban. I'm not sure how the ups and downs of my IRL obligations impact this request for lifting the topic ban. Noleander (talk) 03:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• @Aoidh I apologize if I was not clearer in my prior comments. So, let me be clear now: I am committing to not repeating the behavior that precipitated the topic ban. That means complying with all WP policies, including NPOV and UNDUE, in any edits or articles related to Judaism or Jewish peoples. Specifically: my edits will not involve material excessively or inappropriately negative related to Judaism or Jewish peoples. I hope that addresses your concerns; but if I misunderstood your concerns, let me know. Noleander (talk) 04:48, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
• ... a meta-comment: You guys do this topic ban stuff every day. But me: I don't have a clue what is expected here, or what information I'm supposed to provide. So, although it may look like I'm reluctantly dribbling out information, in fact, I'm being terse so I don't waste your time. I'm just feeling my way along in here, step by step.

Statement by Thryduulf

The topic ban being appealed is Noleander is topic-banned from making any edit relating to Judaism, the Jewish people, Jewish history or culture, or individual Jewish persons identified as such, broadly but reasonably construed, in any namespace. which overlaps with the BLP, Arab-Israeli conflict and race and intelligence CTOP designations, and potentially overlaps with the Eastern Europe and American politics designations but is not fully covered by any of them. That said a scan of his user talk archives suggests that apart from one accidental breach of the topic ban 2012 he has fully complied with it, and I see no reason not to grant the appeal. Thryduulf (talk) 16:22, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Statement by Eluchil404

I briefly reviewed Noleander's activity and noted that they have recently become active again after a long period of inactivity. Thus there is considerably less than 14 years of consistent editing activity since the topic ban. I suggest that having an explicit probationary period is reasonable in this case. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Statement by North8000

14 years is long enough to be given another chance. Also, while, as noted, they don't have 14 years of active editing to be "proven out" they have the equivalent of 3-4 years which is a substantial amount. North8000 (talk) 20:18, 28 April 2025 (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.

Topic banned: Clerk notes

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

Topic banned: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Fourteen years and the topic they were disruptive in allows CTOP enforcement? I'm willing to overlook the subpar appeal based on the time passed without, in my brief check, any other issues. If there's any concerns we could explicitly allow for any uninvolved admin to restore the topic ban for a one year probationary period. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:39, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• I'd like to hear a little more from Noleander about what they've learned from their topic ban and how they've improved their editing since. It may be a rather old sanction, but Noleanders brief statement still doesn't give me much to work with. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:31, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• I am reasonably satisfied with their response to Eek. Primefac (talk) 13:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Couldn't find any issues on a cursory scroll either, which is impressive for 14 years on a fairly wide topic ban; I'd be in favor of lifting the topic ban, neutral on the probationary period given how much of it overlaps with CTOPs. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• I took a look through Noleander's recent contributions to see if there were any concerns. Noleander seems to have been recently editing articles related to the American civil rights movements of the 1950s, which contains a lot of delicate subjects of race. They have also edited in some mathematics articles, as they pointed out above with the Pi article. I did not see any major concerns in their article edits or talk page conversations, and am, at this time, leaning towards lifting the ban for a probationary period so that it can be reapplied more quickly should the need arise. I would like to give arbs and the community more time to comment before making my formal declaration. Z1720 (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
• One of the issues is the Noleander's editing Finding of Fact, which noted that Noleander's edits and articles often give undue weight to one particular aspect of a topic, and when they do, the undue weight is almost invariably placed so as to reflect poorly on any Jewish subjects of the article. @Noleander: Would you mind commenting on this aspect of the TBAN? - Aoidh (talk) 23:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Motion 1: Noleander's topic ban rescinded

Remedy 1.1 (Noleander topic-banned) of Noleander is rescinded.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4

Support

1. I land here at the moment per my comment above. Primefac (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
2. Fourteen years is a long time, and I'm willing to extend some rope. With the confluence of CTOPs I think that any issues can be quickly addressed. I will also support a motion explicitly calling for a probation period. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:43, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
3. Okay. No probation period needed from my side, but I would also support if the motion contained one. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:59, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
4. I believe that people can change their conduct and believe in second chances. Sdrqaz (talk) 03:52, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
5. So long as Noleander is properly aware of the CT scope, I'm willing to go along with the 14 years, AGF rationale. Cabayi (talk) 07:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. That they have made constructive edits outside of this topic area is consistent with their activity prior to the TBAN; they were able to edit constructively outside of this topic area, but not within it. I don't see any compelling evidence that the issues that led to the TBAN are no longer a concern other than "it's been a while". Their response does not assure me that they see this topic any differently, only a (non-binding) assurance that they'll use the talk page this time around. However, the issue isn't which namespace was used. - Aoidh (talk) 01:51, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

   I hope you're not implying Noleander should have better demonstrated their topic-related editing ability by editing constructively inside the area. ;) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion

There seems to be appetite to grant the appeal and thus rescind the topic ban, so proposing. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:41, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

(Though for what its worth, I'm leaning against it at the moment. I'm not convinced that lifting it is necessary or wise, though I admit a 14 year old sanction is extremely old to still be carrying.) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:21, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Clarification request: Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure

Initiated by Allthemilescombined1 at 11:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

[Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area]

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

• Allthemilescombined1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• CaptainEek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Daniel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [diff of notification CaptainEek [2]]
• [diff of notification Daniel [3]]

Statement by Allthemilescombined1

ArbCom is the “Supreme Court” of Wikipedia and serves as the ultimate authority on maintaining the integrity of the Wikipedia project. I have noticed ‘ownership’ of the I/P area by a small group of editors, and I have encountered incivility, POV pushing, tag-teaming and aspersions in the space. I have been following reports about Wikipedia in Pirate Wires and the Jewish Journal further reporting upon troubling behavior, including widespread canvassing. The Wikipedia community can only address these concerns if there is sustained trust in the platform’s governance.

In response to the March 20 Jewish Journal piece on the “Tech For Palestine” editing Discord, CaptainEek stated on March 22 that the Arbitration Committee did not receive the “expanded dossier” at the center of the JJ article.

On April 23, the JJ article was updated in response to CaptainEek's denial of receiving the “expanded dossier” (which appears at the bottom of the article linked above as well as on the journalist's twitter). The updated article indicates that the “expanded dossier” was in fact submitted to ArbCom twice on 9/8/24.

As far as I can tell, ArbCom, while taking efforts to re-review the case in light of the update to the JJ article, has yet to clarify as to how important submitted evidence was missed, ignored, forgotten about, buried, or otherwise. Given that there is zero transparency as to the private proceedings of the committee, this is a complete violation of trust between editors and Arbitrators. How are we to trust that sensitive evidence is being handled appropriately, if such a major miss like this can happen? Furthermore, why would a veteran ArbCom member respond dismissively on a noticeboard before checking their email for correspondence relating to the evidence in question? This does not instill any confidence that the private ArbCom procedures are being conducted appropriately.

As a member of the Wikipedia community, I am requesting a transparent, independent investigation be assembled as to the conduct and procedure of ArbCom on this matter. Just a few of the questions that I want answered:

• What are the current protocols in place to log submitted evidence?
• How was this evidence missed?
• Were the original emails opened by ArbCom? By CaptainEek?
• If so, were the files downloaded?
• Was there any consistent follow up or acknowledgement of correspondence with the editor who submitted the evidence?
• Were the ArbCom and CaptainEek's emails reviewed before CaptainEek made that statement denying the evidence was received?

I am aware of no procedure in place for the Arbitration Committee to be itself investigated. I am requesting that any ArbCom members who were active during the period in question recuse themselves from this proceeding, and only those most recently elected (which took place after this evidence was submitted) to make recommendations on this matter.

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.

Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure: Clerk notes

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

Investigation request regarding Arbitration Committee evidentiary procedure: Arbitrator views and discussion

• @Allthemilescombined1: Why have you tagged me and notified me in this? Your statement makes no reference to me that I can see, and I was only elected to sit on the Committee from January 2025 onwards (which I'm only noting, given you made reference to requesting recusals for those on the Committee in calendar year 2024 — which doesn't include me). Daniel (talk) 11:47, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
• Let me take a swing at this:
  • What are the current protocols in place to log submitted evidence? Generally it stays in email threads. Some things are placed on Arbwiki for ease of review when handling motions.
  • How was this evidence missed? Things slip through the cracks, unfortunately. Right now there are a lot of active email threads plus on-wiki business. Some of it is getting a bit old. Luckily some people are diligent about keeping a running tally of what's ongoing and how old it is.
  • Were the original emails opened by ArbCom? By CaptainEek? There's not really a way to verify who opened it.
  • If so, were the files downloaded? No way to know.
  • Was there any consistent follow up or acknowledgement of correspondence with the editor who submitted the evidence? I think so, I can't find all the emails though.
  • Were the ArbCom and CaptainEek's emails reviewed before CaptainEek made that statement denying the evidence was received? Reviewed by who? I just tried to dig up the emails in question and it took about ten minutes and I only found one and I knew what I was looking for. We don't generally review each others' comments when they're not For the Arbitration Committee,. No one reviewed this comment, for instance, and I shouldn't be trusted with one of those cup and ball toys, never mind a keyboard.
• Now, speaking for the dossier, it was 240 pages of blurry, artifacted images with a ton of repetition. It had a great deal of focus on editors with a handful of edits, or that were already blocked, and didn't really add anything above what we'd already received. By the time I reviewed it almost everything actionable was done, and based on additional private evidence unrelated to the dossier we took some other actions. It sucks that we don't have a better system of tracking the enormous amount of issues that come to us. It also sucks that someone forgot a couple emails out of literally thousands from six months earlier, but that happens. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:59, 30 April 2025 (UTC)