The committee accepts cases related to editors' conduct (including improper editing) where all other routes to agreement have failed, and makes rulings to address problems in the editorial community. However it will not make editorial statements or decisions about how articles should read ("content decisions"). Please do not ask the committee to make these kinds of decisions, as they will not do so.
Requests for Arbitration can also be used to present questions and requests related to previous closed cases. These include clarification of the intent and scope of a decision, appeals of past sanctions, and requests to amend remedies and enforcement measures.
For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and arbitrated, please see Wikipedia:Arbitration guide, which contains important information. You may also wish to review the following:
The Committee will generally accept these types of cases without any previous formal dispute resolution measures being followed:
There are no requests for arbitration at this time.
Current requests
- Involved users
Statement by Phil Sandifer
TTN was banned from deletion activities for six months for his failure to work "collaboratively and constructively with the broader community" on the area of notability and deletion. Since the expiration of his ban, his contributions have been entirely to "merge" content (I say merge because, in fact, he simply redirects pages without discussion), and mass-nominate articles for deletion. For instance, his mass-redirection of articles with identical edit summaries: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] and so on. These edits were unaccompanied by any edits to talk pages to garner consensus. Indeed, even as the very policies he cites as justification are under heavy discussion, including an RFC that got a watchlist notice, TTN has made no contributions towards seeking consensus. None. Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise shows no comments by him.
Regardless of the appropriateness of his nominations, this is the behavior he was previously sanctioned for. And he has returned to it. The routine norm, in such cases, is, at a minimum, to restore the sanctions that were actually effective at preventing the behavior.
Therefore, given his continued failure to work collaboratively and constructively, and the fact that he has returned to the exact behavior that got him previously sanctioned, I request that the arbitration committee restore Remedy 1 from the relevant case without expiration. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- In response to some of the comments below, this is not about the accuracy of TTN's deletion nominations. I would vote delete on about half of them myself. The issue is not whether his proposals are within consensus or not - it is on whether he is working collaboratively and constructively with the broader community. That necessarily involves some level of dialogue with said community. As for the suggestion that editors of fiction articles are also working outside of consensus, I do not see extending this remedy as precluding enforcement against other problematic users, and I would be surprised if the arbcom did.
- A further piece of evidence as well. I encourage anybody to look at [6]. Those are TTN's talk page contributions. Note that the overwhelming majority of them are redirects or template removals of pages. There are only a handful of cases - once every two or three days - where TTN is discussing his edits. Compare to the 8 edits he has made so far to talk pages making any discussion of his edits in October to the over 250 edits he has made so far to articles either nominating them for deletion or merging them in October. That is in no way, in letter or spirit, complying with the directive to work collaboratively and constructively with other editors. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- Protonk, I'm not pillorying TTN over the deletion or merger. But if we don't have a consensus on these issues, and I agree with you that we don't, we need to try to find one. Please explain to me how over 250 merges and deletions in a week with only 8 comments on talk pages about them constitute attempts to find consensus, or to work with other editors. Please explain to me how TTN is in any way complying with the instruction that previous non-compliance with led to a six month ban from these issues. Because otherwise, this seems straightforward - he was previously sanctioned for something. He is doing it again. What's changed? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- In response to Bainer's comments, with all due respect, the claim that there is nowhere to discuss these issues except for AfD is absurd. When merging articles, the article talk pages are a fine place to discuss merges. (Or, more accurately, redirects) For the large batch of episodes of the TV show Heroes he recently mass redirected I would think that stopping in at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Heroes might have been effective.
- Were TTN interested in discussion and consensus-building, even with the continued contentiousness of a general guideline for fiction, many opportunities were available to him, not least of which was participating in the RFC to work on the notability issues for fiction. That TTN ignored all of these channels and ignored attempts to build consensus on this issue does not seem to me to be a good thing, and I am, frankly, baffled how you can suggest that AfD was the only channel open to him. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by SirFozzie
You know, I'm beginning to think "Episodes and Characters" is the ArbCom version of the Chinese Water Torture. I think TTN has been working within Wikipedia Guidelines. One can never fruitfully seek consensus to delete or redirect on a talk page, quite frankly, the most interested (or should I say biased) people to keeping an article on that article. I suggest that ArbCom deny this request and tell BOTH sides to continue to work within policy, rather then constantly seeking the heavy hammer of ArbCom to do their work for them. SirFozzie (talk) 07:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
...And another E&C arbcom thread aiming to expose TTN as the evil culprit, while fan editors are sooooo totally working "collaboratively and constructively with the broader community", restoring articles that fail WP policies and guidelines left and right instead of fixing the deficiencies to a minimum level so that the messenger (TTN) leaves them alone. (I'd say more but these may-I-say-misguided TTN-arbcom appeals are just getting tiresome.) – sgeureka t•c 11:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
TTN recently nominated Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch for deletion. The discussion was closed as a snowball keep. TTN then immediately placed a merge tag on the article. That's just not 'working within consensus'. There was an overwhelming consensus to keep the article. NOT to make it a redirect to a brief mention in another article, TTN's acknowledged definition of 'merge'... otherwise known as deletion. Continually pressing against the lack of general consensus around notability standards for fictional topics with constant deletion efforts is IMO bad enough... but ignoring consensus when it does form is a problem. When he loses an argument he needs to accept that. NOT try to get the same result people just overwhelmingly rejected through the back door. --CBD 12:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
This is the same basic request as the previous request for clarification. The answer here should be the same. We don't have a functioning guideline to deal with notability of fictional subjects--specifically those which do not cite any sources. Many, many articles on fictional subjects will either never have sources or will never cite sources (because people can't be bothered). Until we have some community accepted guideline for inclusion it doesn't help to pillory TTN over the deletion or merger of these articles.
- His case came to ArbComm because of edit warring over merger tags and redirects. Proposing mergers and nominating articles for deletion isn't the same thing. It is clear that what TTN wants to do is reduce the number of fictional articles we have on wikipedia. I don't think that the result of the previous case should read "TTN cannot work to reduce the number of fictional articles". I agree that people are pissed about the Monty Python thing, although the merger proposal was perfectly reasonable. I have fewer defenses for this copy/paste AfD rationales, but I don't think either act is a refusal to respect consensus. when I say pillory I don't mean you in particular. I mean to say that the debate is larger than TTN and that without some clear resolution of that larger debate we can't blame him for forcing current community standards on articles that people like.
Statement by Kww
TTN is working as cooperatively as possible with people that don't tend to be cooperative. He is bringing the articles to AFD, and participating in the AFD discussions. He is not performing unilateral redirect and mergings, because, even though they are far more efficient, he was told to stop.
As for Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, there actually is a cooperative merge discussion going on at Talk:Monty Python and the Holy Grail#Merge, where most of the participants are being polite and cooperative. The snowball keep came as a result of a pile-on by fans, not as a result of any policy based discussions.
I think we are at the point where reporting TTN to Arbcom is more of a problem than TTN himself.—Kww(talk) 17:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
TTN is a pain in a great deal of asses here on wikipedia, mine included. However, for the most part he is trying to be cooperative and clean things up and do it by the books: case in point an AfD that was closed by him after two people pointed out quickly the characters in the nominated article were mentioned in other books and notable. I seriously don't think at this point in time this is necessary at all.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by nifboy
As I complained about in the previous RFAR thread, as well as an AfD filed solely because TTN didn't, this feels increasingly like bureaucracy creep. AfD is increasingly treated like a CYA, discouraging WP:BOLD across the project. Nifboy (talk) 21:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
"As for the suggestion that editors of fiction articles are also working outside of consensus, I do not see extending this remedy as precluding enforcement against other problematic users, and I would be surprised if the arbcom did." This comedic request for clarification would indicate that the current ArbCom actually do think that. In the end, what do we want Wikipedia to be? If we want it to be a free-for-all without regard to independent notability, feel free to reset TTN's sanction. If we want it to be an encyclopedia, he's going about it in the only way possible - there is intrasigence on both sides here and I don't see that concentrating on TTN - yet again - is particularly helpful. Let's face it, he's not exactly doing it for his health [7].Black Kite 22:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by DGG
I see no real evidence of cooperation. Day after day he continues to nominate 5 to 10 articles for deletion without considering the possibility of merge or redirect--if asked about why he has not done so he almost always ignores the question. Day after day he uses the same deletion summary, without indicating anything about the individual article--he does not help the discussion by even indicating what work of fiction it is or what role the character plays; when asked to clarify his deletion summaries he ignores that also. He generally nominates articles at the same time of widely varying importance from different fictions; either he is working indiscriminately, or deliberately making it very hard to defend intelligently: he can use the same deletion argument for everything, since he includes every possible reason for deleting an article, but a defense of the article has to be focused & cover them all in detail. He continues sometimes to redirect without discussion. I'm not going to add to the diffs here-- 99 % of the diffs on his contributions show this, so there's hardly need to select. But as an example, showing his consistent pattern of asking for sources and then, if found, denying relevance, see "Most recent prime-time episodes are reviewed by a number of sources" used by him as a delete argument! The one sensible close pointed out by Kung Fu Man was yesterday, and he's been quiet since--after it became clear this was going to be filed. This matches what to me is the proof of his bad faith is the immediate resumption of deletion activity immediate after the arb com moratorium. His enforced departure from merge/deletion/redirect will not hurt the deletionist cause any more than his previous enforced departure did: there are enough others trying to carry out a rationalisation of the content, generally in a less damaging way. The victory at Wikipedia discussions should not go to the most stubborn. DGG (talk) 00:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
- the BRD approach requires being willing to enter into Discussion,and only works when people are reasonable about it. There are other editors who sometimes may be unreasonable, but not to this extent. Failing to agree on a guideline discussion is not being disruptive, and not in the same category as making massive afds and redirects. That people did not all want to adopt someone's proposals does not mean they are disruptive. DGG (talk) 07:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC).
What ticks me off with TTN is not that he has very strict (in my opinion way too strict) standards for fictional topics. It is that he has apparently no interest at all in creating any content whatsoever. His edits are overwhelmingly target towards removing or deleting content. Even while he was banned from AFD-ing or merging fiction topics, his main activity consisted of "trimming" fiction topics.
It also concerns me that TTN has a tendency to fire off AFD nominations at machine gun pace; with several nominations taking place within the space of a few minutes. Has he taken enough time to review each article he nominates, and think carefully through what alternatives there might be to deletion?
I have worked with a lot of users who could be described (sometimes by themselves) as "deletionist", and I can recognize them as excellent contributors; their deletionism is tempered by excellent content writing. Therefore, they realize and can empathize with the challenges in locating sources. They become peer contributors who can discuss and work cooperatively, instead of policemen who hammer down on everything. I can only hope that TTN will redirect his energies towards some article writing. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by Stifle
I massively oppose any reinstatement of sanctions against TTN. He is doing a very good job clearing up unencyclopedic material, is doing it civilly, and is coming up against entrenched opposition from vested interests. Stifle (talk) 10:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
As feared, it is my opinion that this (as well as any such discussion involving TTN) has devolved into a inclusionist/deletionist debate. A lot of the AfDs he nominated I happen to agree with, but some I also have disagreed; but that's beside the point. It seems that more than anything many users — which include obviously biased editors, fanboys, and others with extremely vested interests in articles to the point of ownership — want TTN with a proverbial rope around his neck, even to the point that some users have resorted to sockpuppetry and even death threats. I only see this as a ploy to keep bugging ArbCom until they get the result they so desire. MuZemike (talk) 20:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by CharlotteWebb
I don't see how TTN's immediate resumption of the same behavior that let to a six-month topic ban (from merging and AFDing articles related to fiction) can be anything other than exhausting the community's patience. He's certainly exhausted mine. I don't usually edit articles related to fiction, but I do often read them whenever I can. Quite frankly it pisses me off when I have to dig through the edit history or look on Deletionpedia to find the information I'm looking for.
I urge the committee to accept this case and consider issuing a ban of greater duration and breadth. — CharlotteWebb 21:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I just don't see any real policy breach. He's using Wikipedia's process as it has been designed:
- Be bold
- Revert edits you disagree with
- Instead of revert warring, discuss. (For example, AFD or a merge discussion.)
Bold editing is not only acceptable, it is encouraged. "Any changes you make that turn out badly can be reverted, often quite painlessly." And indeed some of TTN's changes were reverted. I disagree with many of his editing decisions, but he certainly has the right to try them out, as much as people have the right to revert them. I would only have an issue if he started revert warring, or canvassing, or waiting around until no one was looking to try the exact same thing again. But so far, he seems to get the WP:POINT whenever the consensus forms. That's good, isn't it?
The other complaints are more dubious. Nominating articles for AFD with an explanation of the policy violation is insufficient? Suggesting a merge after a failed AFD is disruptive? In my view, starting a discussion is almost always a *good* thing. That's where editors get to challenge his view of the content and build a consensus with or against him. Consensus building is always helpful! I repeat for the sake of summarizing and emphasizing: starting a discussion about content is almost always good faith, and almost always helpful.
(As an aside, the same isn't true for starting a discussion about a user's behavior. It seems there are a few editors who have piled in because TTN breached sanctions that expired a month ago. You can't ask to throw someone back in jail just because they're exercising rights that they were previously entitled to.)
The only time when discussing content stops being helpful is where it becomes repetitive, out of step with settled policy or consensus. Where discussion becomes WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT or WP:FORUMSHOPping. But that means that the editor has to be shown that he/she is re-opening the same issue over and over. Someone has to make a good faith effort to educate the problem editor, rather than jumping into accusations or bureaucratic sanctions. For example, the idea that a few reliable third-party sources are insufficient for notability seems to go against consensus -- let alone what WP:N says. I haven't taken a closer look at this particular content dispute, so maybe there's actually a policy reason that justifies TTN's viewpoint. But you won't know until you actually try to discuss it with him, preferably at his talk page away from any specific content.
As someone who just wants articles to meet guidelines -- no more and no less -- I'm sympathetic to people who are frustrated with extreme deletionists or inclusionists, who invent their own standards for inclusion. Even though extremists seldom get their way, it can be frustrating to butt heads with them over and over, after one issue has been settled. I don't think it has gotten to that point yet because I haven't seen TTN trying to re-open settled issues in a WP:POINTy or WP:GAMEy way. But everyone should do what they can to make sure it doesn't go there. That's equally true if people keep requesting new or extended sanctions against TTN without showing a real policy/guideline breach. Randomran (talk) 21:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by Masem
If people believe TTN's present actions (which are generally targeting articles that do lack notability, and with methods that follow the WP:BRD approach) are against ArbCom, then we should be bringing up those editors (both inclusionists and deletionists) that are prevent any sort of compromise in the last year and half to resolve issues with fiction and notability. We've tried to offer a middle of the road solution (the current failed WP:FICT proposal), we're trying to work out how to resolve this on the general scale with the general notability guideline, but the same names keep coming up (for opposite sides of the issue) saying these doesn't meet what they want. Given that the second part of the ArbCom decision was to get all involved editors to work cooperatively to revolve the issue of notability and episodes and characters, and these people are not helping towards a compromise, then they are as much at fault as TTN is above by his current actions...
But of course, I'm not going to call these names forward for ArbCom arbitration, just as much as I don't believe that TTN is doing anything against the overall ArbCom case. But it is important to remind those that would like to see nothing less than TTN banned from editing WP forever that the decision was not unilaterally towards TTN's actions; cooperation and compromise are needed as well. --MASEM 23:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by jc37
In general, as bainer notes below, there is really no "common practice" when it comes to such articles. Such AfD results often vary wildly.
Let's presume that someday we do develop some sort of policy/guideline, which most everyone can agree on.
Does that mean that we're then going to have to go back through all these articles which have been deleted/merged/redirected, and restore them? A herculean task, which should never be necessary, but will be, regardless.
I've seen enough fait accompli to understand that while theoretically, deletions (and moves, and merges, etc.) can be undone, it's usually much more difficult in practice.
I think this is just another case of "everyone's got a divergent opinion", and there are those who don't want to see the house burned down before the process of remodeling has been completed.
Incidentally, here's another "start" to such a discussion: Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. - jc37 08:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Clerk notes
Arbitrator views and discussion
- One has to begin with the observation that the community has failed to produce a notability guideline particularly for either television episodes or fictional characters. The best there is is the general fiction notability guideline. In the absence of any specific guidance, there are really no methods available to seek the input of the community at large about such articles other than deletion debates; indeed, that's the approach envisaged by the general guideline. On what has been presented here, TTN is not repeatedly nominating articles, nor being disruptive within the discussions. The Committee is being asked (again) to remedy the community's failure to produce some coherent approach to these articles by banning someone with a particular point of view about them, and I do not think that is right. --bainer (talk) 22:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
- Involved users
Statement by Shoemaker's Holiday
Martinphi is under an editing restriction because he " has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior, including, but not limited to, using Wikipedia as a soapbox, threatening disruption of the project, and making deliberately provocative edits" (Finding of Fact #2, sans links). It is becoming increasingly clear that he has not yet learned proper Wikipedia behaviour. and, as the restriction is due to expire in November, I am asking that it be extended a further year.
For instance, here he claims that WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience, a part of NPOV policy that has been part of policy since 2001 in nearly the same form as today [8] does not actually have any relevance, and does not apply to articles on Parapsychology. He then attacked everyone who upheld the policy, declared intent to force changes through,[9] then leapt over to the policy page and attempted to delete the phrasing he dislikes.[10]
Here is a recent Arbitration enforcement thread about his editing of policy.
I think that Martinphi's statements in the Paranormal Request for clarification a bit below this one are also relevant. In the face of every arbitrator clearly stating that the finding of fact does not set out an explicit content ruling, but was simply an effort to understand the party's points, he continues to insist that the arbcom, in fact, made a content ruling, and that he should be able to use it to push his point of view.
Martinphi has a very bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, which makes him very frustrating to work with. The Arbcom restriction somewhat mediates that, but I don't think he has demonstrated any real improvement in the last year that would justify the restriction's removal. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 03:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I would also suggest that he be banned from editing policy. Besides the examples from above, back in April, he specifically admitted to editing WP:CIVIL in order to better use it to attack ScienceApologist. [11] [12]. (Background, abridged: he was adding words he had seen ScienceApologist and other people he disliked using to the Civility policy as "actionable" examples of incivility. [13] [14] [15]) Between this, today's editing of WP:NPOV/FAQ (described above), and the more recent WP:NPOV incident (courtesy duplicate link), I don't think he can be trusted to edit policy. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by Kww
Wanted to concur that MartinPhi does not seem to have learned the lessons that the original editing restriction was intended to convey. It seems to have driven him towards behaviour that is even more damaging: the constant editing of policy pages to slowly transform them into polices that favor his views. I would fully support an extension of the current editing restriction, and I think an editing restriction on policy pages should be considered.—Kww(talk) 17:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Clerk notes
Arbitrator views and discussion
- Party notifications
Specific Request for Clarification
In Category_talk:Pseudoscience we are setting about refining the applicable pages and subcategories for this pejorative categorical tag, as represented by these two threads. It would, for the purpose of this refinement, be helpful to have a clarification of the Arbcom ruling mentioned above as regards the following:
A) The Specific Treatment of the Astrology Page Within This Ruling
A1) Was it the intention of the Arbcom to explicitly specify the astrology page as an example of a "theory which has a following" AND "which is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community"?
OR
A2) Is the characterization of "something generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" something which must ALSO be demonstrated with citation by those with an interest in applying that category tag to the astrology page?
B) The Specific Treatment of the Astrology Category and Its Contents Within This Ruling
B1) Whatever the intention of the above, does this ruling and clarification also apply to the entire astrology category, and also to all the subcategories and pages to which this category is linked?
OR
B2) Should each category and page be separately considered unless their topical areas are identical (i.e. astrology page and category but nothing else until supported by cites)?
C) Restricted, or Unrestricted-but-Challengeable, Pseudoscience Category Tagging?
C1) Should it be a preliminary requirement, before the Pseudoscience category tag is applied, that a theory be demonstrated, through convincing citation to both: 1) have a following and 2) to be generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community?
OR
C2) Should the Pseudoscience category tag be applied to and retained on pages and categories by those who have an interest, regardless of citation or the lack thereof, until and unless challenged and removed due to a lack of substantiation?
Recommendation in General
Having read the Arbcom and become interested in lending a hand to refining the implementation of the Pseudoscience category, I have been apprised as to the force and character of its content, but without clarification on its implementation, it seems difficult to fully act on it. The problem of the changing significance and usage of the term 'science' through time is not adequately addressed by this Arbitration, nor is the differentiation being made between pseudosciencES on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other. Also, no mention is made of the fundamental differences in application of the tag to a page (such as astrology) on the one hand or to other categories (such as Category:Reincarnation research) on the other.
My preference is that this pejorative category be conservatively employed, and only after demonstrating, by citation to reliable, NPOV scientific evaluations, that it is actually warranted. It is also my impression that greater specificity is needed for direction as to how best to add it to pages as well as to categories. Further, i think that it is generally unworkable as stipulated in numbers 15, 16, 17, and 18, and that an amendment may be needed so as to strictly contain its usage to what can be convincingly supported as pseudosciencES (nouns, enterprises representing themselves falsely as sciences) rather than what may be ambiguously characterized as 'pseudoscience' (noun or adjective, confusingly and ambiguously presented).
Astrology is well sourced as pseudoscience, I believe.
It is my general experience with the pseudoscience category that it is often used without sourcing. The ArbCom seems to have put in place a strict standard, which is that an article with this category should be sourced as "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community." [16] This seems to be a recognition that this category is pejorative, and needs more sourcing than usual. The pseudoscience category is not usually so sourced when used, I believe. I think it is seldom sourced to the level of generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community. I don't know about all the other stuff in this request, but making it clear how much sourcing is needed, if any, would help: that has caused a bunch of contention, and generally the opinions of editors, rather than sourcing, has determined when it is used. That is generally how categories seem to be assigned, so the contention in this case comes from confusion about what the Pseudoscience ArbCom means. Do we need a source which speaks for the scientific community before we use this category? If not, what quality of sourcing, if any, is necessary?
Related: can you give us more guidance as to what is "obvious pseudoscience?" [17] This is an appeal to the discretion of editors, and there is an extremely wide range of opinion here. I have generally said "the threshold is Time cube, and anything more credible than that needs sourcing." But I do not know if this is correct.
Personally, I don't think categories do much, so I don't care, but this does cause a lot of strife. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, can you confirm this:
The pseudoscience category is applicable anywhere that a reliable source has asserted or questioned whether the subject contains pseudoscientific elements.
What you're saying seems to be that what we need to look for is significant debate. However, in this case we would use the cat on Psychoanalysis, which is against the Pseudoscience ruling. There are very significant questions about psychoanalysis, as well as many other fields which nevertheless have a following and might be scientific to a large degree. So, I'm still a little confused. What you say seems to indicate a very significant expansion of the current use of the category. ——Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 21:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
This is a content dispute. ArbCom involvement isn't necessary, since the original decisions regarding Pseudoscience is awfully clear. Can we not waste ArbCom's time, and let them actually help the project along? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 03:48, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest that FT2 recuse himself from this discussion. His known antipathy towards me in his well-known one-man vendetta to besmirch my reputation, and his well-known support of pseudoscientific concepts such as NLP indicates he cannot provide any valid discussion to this request. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- Threaded discussion, including responses from FT2 and further comments by Orangemarlin and Jim62sch, moved to the talk page of the case. Daniel (talk) 13:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the hub-bub is all about here. There are accurate definitions of PS in dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, et cetera. Seems to be a case of someone wanting to project certain beliefs that are clearly PS as being scientrific by changng the definition of science. Not likely to happen as WP needs to reflect the reality of the nonce. Ta. •Jim62sch•dissera! 20:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Statement by NE2
Are we seriously arguing about whether astrology is pseudoscience? The answer is clearly no, since it doesn't even pretend to be science 
--NE2 00:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
@NE2 - Yes, astrology is a pseudoscience. It's a system that appears to have a scientific basis -- the water-based body is said to be effected by gravitational pulls like the Moon creates tides (discounted, but that's the idea) -- and it's vastly complex with diagrams and classifications and so on. At first glance, it wouldn't be surprising if one thought it was science. Also, way back when, it actually was the "science" of the day. The learned men, doctors and philosophers, in ancient times practiced astrology. If you read our own pseudoscience article, it mentions that Karl Popper (one of the guys who popularized the notion that some things only pose as science) used astrology as a sort of poster-example of pseudoscience. As such, it's well-sourced; partly because of Popper, it is often used as an example of pseudoscience. It is a really good example. --Nealparr (talk to me) 13:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
The correct approach to any article that contains questionable science is to include a properly sourced description of why the science used is questionable, so that no casual reader will be confused or mislead into thinking that it is proper and accepted. The pseudoscience label is a shortcut; it is not objectionable in and of itself, but it should never be used in place of or in the absence of an explanation of the failings of the science. My concern here (which is borne out by the way the category is used in practice by some editors) is that the label can slapped on the article without any justification, sourcing, or attempts to explain its presence, and held there through vague references to the ArbCom ruling. this practice amounts to the legitimization of prejudicial opinion, which is against wikipedia's core policies. Would we allow editors to place buddhism, or judaism, or scientology (or etc.) in a category called 'antichristian religions' without a great deal of discussion and reference to sources? even granting that there are certain religions (like satanism) that are overtly and explicitly antichristian, we would still require proper verification and consensus. so why would we allow this pejorative 'pseudoscience' category to be applied to whatever random article some random editor feels like?
Please let's bring this back in focus. the purpose of categories on wikipedia is to help readers find related information; they are not supposed to be used as a tool to denigrate article topics. Contentious categories like pseudoscience should only be used carefully, with attention to sourcing, and only as an adjunct to proper discussion in the article. Even with something as clearly pseudoscientific as Astrology, the category should be used only after it is made clear in the article that this is an appropriate label, and if that discussion is not there, the category should be immediately and unceremoniously removed. --Ludwigs2 17:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
As I indicated at Category talk:Pseudoscience, Self-ref (talk · contribs) should be encouraged to start relevant discusssions at the talk pages of individual articles on the value and accuracy of a pseudoscience categorization. Self-ref has outlined personal categorization criteria that does not jive with current ArbCom-established foundations or general consensus. As such, I would dispute any wholesale de-categorization based upon said personal criteria as I'm certain it would result in editwarring and other nonsense.
Self-ref has recently been making irresponsible large-scale changes to the categorization of pseudoscience. For example, removing Category:Phrenology from Category:Pseudoscience is manifestly ridiculous: phrenology is a classic example of pseudoscience (with important proto-science hallmarks). There has been no discussion attempted by Self-ref regarding phrenology at Talk:Phrenology or Category talk:Phrenology, which would be the appropriate places to bring this up. Even Self-ref's long-winded politicking at Category talk:Pseudoscience barely deals with phrenology...this is a wildly out-of-view location to discuss that proper categorization of phrenology.
I think it's clear that Self-ref can and should initiate discussion regarding the inclusion or exclusion of a pseudoscience category on the talk page of a subject in question. The current activity of making large-scale demands for sourcing in an under-the-radar category talk page is inefficient and unwise at best, and deliberate obfuscation at worst. I agree with the early ArbCom returns that this is a genuine content dispute that should be settled in the typical manner...so I strongly encourage Self-ref to discuss proper categorization of Subject X at Talk:Subject X. — Scientizzle 18:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Clerk notes
- I've improved the formatting throughout this thread. Although the adjustments to individuals' comments was minimal, if I have (inadvertently) altered the meaning of any editor's statement, please feel free to revert or tweak my tidying as necessary. Anthøny ✉ 16:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Arbitrator views and discussion
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The issue is that a certain kind of dispute seems to exist around pseudoscience. How one draws its boundaries, and where it shades into "general dispute behavior", is a grey area, but the remedy was intended to tackle the kinds of disputes, issues, and (often the same types of) parties as are seen repeatedly in pseudoscience related disputes. The test whether a given article can have those remedies applies is basically, "are the disputes on this article of a kind that is similar in those ways to other pseudoscience-type disputes".
Examples of "how one might tell":
- Are there scientific views that the topic is at best unproven and at worst without plausible foundation, and also other significant views who believe in what might be folklore, traditional/alternative/naturalistic/intuitive views, who argue that despite lack of scientific plausibility or proof, it is "proven by experience over the ages" or by some other means which is broadly discounted as evidence by science, or the like?
- Are there concerns that a scientific fringe theory is being presented as proven or plausible based on "dressing up" -- taking what scientists view as scant, non-existent, or misrepresented (or undue weight) in a scientific sense and trying to make it seem more than it is?
- Are there similar or same parties, and similar or same themes, in the dispute, as in other pseudoscience disputes?
I would look to those, primarily. Wording such as "category of pseudoscience" are not intended to be rigid criteria but only suggestive/indicative, not least because category membership itself is changeable.
It was not the intention to force a decision "is this pseudoscience" on any topic, but much more "do the issues and the lines in the dispute reflect those of other Wikipedia pseudoscience disputes, such that remedies for pseudoscience may be useful to apply".
So turning to specific questions - (A) yes astrology may well have very similar issues and lines of dispute (commonsense says). If in fact the problems it is having, mirror those that pseudoscience has had elsewhere, and this ruling may help, then it may be usefully applicable. (B) See A. (C) Don't bother tagging (or detagging) articles to get or avoid anything under any ruling. It doesn't help and it won't really affect whether the nature of the topic and its disputes share a lot in common with disputes in "pseudoscience". Category is a useful aid, not a prescriptive rule.
FT2 (Talk | email) 17:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
- As FT2, I see two separate questions here. The first is about categorization as pseudoscience; I feel that we have explained our view sufficiently in the prior case and editors and admins should be able to follow that ruling. The second is about how far the sanctions in that case extend. As FT2, I see this as a dispute between people holding two different viewpoints; these groups appear to be able to get into conflict on any page which might be linked, however tangentially, to pseudoscience or anything that might be called such by anyone. Thus, the scope of the ruling is wider than just those pages that can accurately be categorized "pseudoscience" and they apply to any such article upon which such a dispute between those sides takes place, IMO. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 23:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
- Involved users
