Initiated by Just Step Sideways at 22:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

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

• Just Step Sideways (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Statement by Just Step Sideways

Two recent situations have revealed what appears to be some vagueness regarding when and if users should email private evidence to the committee, the utility of doing so when it concerns a curent on-wiki, but non-ArbCom discussion, and also if merely saying that a thread exists is not permitted.

(I seem to recall that there is a case somewhere where the committee discussed very similar issues, but I've been unable to locate it in the archives.)

• In one case a user posted nothing more than the name of a very long thread at an off-wiki criticism site (they actually didn't even spell it the same as the actual thread title). It turned out that within this off-wiki thread, if one dug through it long enough, there was a link to a different thread where the very user who had made the on-wiki post was outed. This resulted in a very large number of diffs on a busy page being supressed, even though there was no direct link to any outing.
• In an ongoing RFA, some users are opposing based on what could only be described as completely harmless posts on that same forum. The recent supression action would seem to indicate that even posting the name of the thread on-wiki would lead to further supression, which is obviously to be avoided. One of these users has stated that they contacted the committee before posting, but it is unclear what this was meant to accomplish or what the committee may or may not have said back to them, if anything.
• I considered reproducing some or all of the RFA candidates posts on-wiki to demonstrate the point that they are comletely unproblematic unto themselves, but given the events described above I don't know if that would also lead to supression actions.

I feel like this has the potantial to create a chilling effect where users will be afraid to post anything at all on off-wiki criticism sites, no matter how innocuous their posts are the topic being discussed may be, and that even mentioning the name of a thread on such a site is now forbidden, which seems a bit extreme to me.

I understand and agree that directly posting a link on-wiki to a specific post that contains outing is a clear violation of the outing policy. It is less clear to me that posting merely the name of an extremely long thread with no actual link to the thread at all is a violation. I would therefore ask that the committee clarify where the line is.

I've deliberately not named the individuals involved in these incidents as this is matter of interpretation of policy, specifically Misplaced Pages:Oversight. I can email more detailed information if needed but I imagine it should be fairly easy for you all to determine what I'm referring to. Just Step Sideways 22:38, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Barkeep, I'm not sure what I've got wrong, because I had to kind of piece together what actually happened as the material was supressed. I was pretty sure I'd got it right but guesswork is risky that way. Just Step Sideways 23:08, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Eek, I guess it comes as no surprise that we don't see eye-to-eye on this, but there is never a situation that calls for linking to or discussing a Wikipediocracy thread. seems a bit extreme to me. Do I agree with everything that is said and done over there? No, but I could say the same about here. There are several ongoing threads over there that contain valid and insightful criticism of Misplaced Pages content and policy. I have personally taken multiple actions here that have improved the project, that I likely wouldn't have done had I not read the criticism over there. I'd tell you which ones but right now it is unclear to me if I'm even allowed to say. Dispairaiging remarks like No need to point people to WPO to hear ten blocked trolls give their opinions on it. aren't helpful. I seem to recall you saying at some point that you have never actually read anything over there, so it's hard to understand how you formed your opinions. Just Step Sideways 17:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I do agree there are aspects of this that are outside of the committee's remit, but one thing that is for sure inside of it is the question of "emailing the evidence to the committee." If there is evidence over there that, say, an admin is blocking users for invalid reasons at the urging of others over there, and going back to laugh about it with them, that would obviously be an issue for the committee. That isn't what we just saw at RFA. I feel like "I told ArbCom" was in this case meant as a shield, to allow the user to say they had infomred the proper authorities of the supposed wrongdoing, when the wrongdoing amounted to "they have an account and have made a very small number of completely non-objectionable posts." What was emailing the committee meant to accomplish? What, if anything, did it accomplish? What, if any, was the committee's reply? Just Step Sideways 20:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I need to explain that collective guilt is generally believed to be a bad thing. Let's just reverse this scenario: If I comment on an ArbCom case, and later the committee makes a profoundly stupid decision, is that my fault? Obviosuly not. Am I obligated to explicitly call it out and distance myself from it even though I had nothing to do with it? Of course not. Ignoring it as having nothing to do with me is a valid option. WPO is no more a monolith hive mind that WP is, opinions differ on a wide variety of topics. Just Step Sideways 20:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, we're certainly seeing new levels of crazy here, calling people "traitors" for posting there and saying Editors need to make a choice between their loyalty to Misplaced Pages and its editors versus their social life elsewhere. is pretty wild. You can't be critical of Misplaced Pages content or contributors or you're a traitor, choose a side. Just Step Sideways 17:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Tryptofish

I think it would be very interesting to hear ArbCom opinions on this question. In part, this issue comes up in the context of the 2024 RfA reform discussions heading in the direction of wanting accusations of wrongdoing against RfA candidates to be backed up with specific evidence, and the question comes up of how to provide specific evidence when it cannot be posted onsite. Does ArbCom want editors to submit such evidence about RfA candidates to ArbCom, and if so, can ArbCom respond to the evidence in a way that is sufficiently timely to be useful for RfA? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

There have been a lot of subtopics within the discussion here, but something I hope ArbCom members will come back to is about the applicability of this to situations where the issue comes up during an RfA. Perhaps in some future RfA, an Esotrix-type issue will be raised (but without ArbCom having been alerted to it prior to the RfA), and editors will want to know if the editor making the accusation should present the evidence privately to ArbCom. Obviously, such evidence cannot be published on the RfA page, and the community is currently doing a lot of discussion about when it might be disruptive to make accusations about RfA candidates without sufficient evidence. So I'd be interested in any opinions about:

1. Does ArbCom want such evidence pertaining to an RfA sent to ArbCom?
2. If so, can ArbCom deal with the evidence and post a public response quickly enough to fit within the RfA timeframe?
3. And if not, does ArbCom want to point the community towards some other way of processing such accusations?

--Tryptofish (talk) 01:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

I have lots of thoughts, but they boil down to: we will not link to (or obliquely mention) any thread with outing/doxxing; consider whether it is accessible to the public so it can be verified; and consider whether the WP user has linked themselves to the off-wiki account. If any of the 3 tests fail, then you can't bring it up at RFA (or anywhere else at WP). Sorry, the world is imperfect. Based on this, you would very often be able to discuss a Discord discussion, and very often not be able to discuss a WO discussion, but with exceptions in both cases. It seems like further details on this aren't useful until and unless I become God Emperor of WP, and can just implement it, but I can expand if someone wants. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:28, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde

I see this as a matter for the community, rather than ARBCOM. To me the heart of the matter is if, and how, we can discuss Misplaced Pages editors' off-wiki activities. ARBCOM has a role to play when off-wiki conduct impinges on on-wiki matters enough; typically, for harassment, collusion, or other disruption of our core purpose. The off-wiki conduct that has become a matter of discussion at RFA is very different: it isn't a violation of any of our PAGs, it is just behavior some editors find objectionable in an RFA candidate. We treat the off-wiki lives of our editors as private, and rightfully so. Discord and WPO are weird, in that they are strictly off-wiki fora populated by a large number of Wikipedians in good standing. I don't think it's an unreasonable position to take that behavior there shouldn't be immune to on-wiki scrutiny if it becomes relevant to on-wiki matters; I also don't think it's unreasonable to say that what happens off-wiki should stay there until and unless our PAGs are being violated, and then it needs to go to ARBCOM. But that's an area in which current policy seems to not cover all the contingencies, and the community needs to grapple with that. I don't see how a comment like this is useful to send to ARBCOM, or what ARBCOM could do if it was; but we're clearly unsettled as a community that it was posted, and we need to figure out guidelines for it. Vanamonde93 (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Joe Roe

I agree that some clarification from the committee on these matters would be helpful. This isn't entirely up to them—for example, the ban on discussing Discord discussions is the result of a community RfC and it would be inappropriate to modify it either way here—but ArbCom has historically played a role in making editors feel generally uncomfortable about linking to things off-wiki. More specifically, a 2007 remedy pronouncing that quoting private correspondence is a copyright violation is still on the books and still cited in WP:EMAILPOST. Does the current committee agree with this interpretation?

In addition, ArbCom has a responsibility to regulate the oversight team, and I've had a feeling for a long time now that they been enforce an extremely broad understanding of what constitutes "outing" that is not necessarily reflective of broader community opinion. Some direction there could also be very helpful: OS is used as "tool of first resort", or so the mantra goes, but we shouldn't underestimate how chilling it is to have an edit suppressed. – Joe (talk) 08:47, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

• Aoidh makes a good point below about current policy (WP:OUTING) requiring disclosure of personal information on Misplaced Pages before it can be discussed. There are two pivot points there: where the disclosure should happen, but also whether profiles on external sites, and by extension posts associated with those profiles, can reasonably be considered "personal information". For me it's the latter that is the problem here; the former is a good rule when applied to genuine personal information. Interestingly, it's also a relatively recent addition to the harassment policy, following this discussion in December 2020. The reason given for the addition was to bring the policy in line with the practice of oversighters, which rather speaks to my point of the OS team pushing things in a more conservative direction, not necessarily the community as a whole. – Joe (talk) 06:36, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
• @Moneytrees and Barkeep49: The "copyright email" correspondence is cited in WP:EMAILPOST, albeit in a roundabout way. I think it would be helpful for the committee to formally retract that remedy, even if it won't change things immediately, just to remove the spectre of that particular armchair lawyer from subsequent discussions. As Barkeep also alludes to, a lot of the appearance of support for these rules comes not from people really reflecting on the core issue, but transferring a (faulty) logic originally applied to emails to IRC, and then from IRC to Discord, and so on. If the sender of an email wants to control what happens to it, they can do so completely: by not sending it. If the operator of a Discord channel wants to control what happens to the logs, they can do so completely: by not making them public. But what we're talking about here is material that has already been published on the internet. It is not private and never will be again. All we achieve by trying to put the cat back in the bag is to create a charade where we have to pretend not to be able to see messages that we can all see, not to know things that we all know, and not to talk about things that we can all talk about elsewhere. Nobody's privacy is protected, it just makes it easier for editors who behave badly off-wiki to evade accountability, and makes good-faith editors look like idiots because they're not allowed to provide evidence for the opinions they've formed based on off-wiki activity.
• @CaptainEek: What is ArbCom supposed to do with it, though? The precipitating incident here is an RfA where there was opposition based on the candidates activity on Discord and Wikipediocracy (so no it's not just about WPO). The opposers (including me) could not point to specific incidents, because of the rules discussed here which, at least in part, stem from a prior ArbCom remedy on from the practice of the oversight team. How would emailing ArbCom help there? And in general, what role is ArbCom supposed to play when the off-wiki material that people want to discuss is relevant to on-wiki activities, but doesn't rise to the level of something needing ArbCom intervention?
• And to nobody in particular, I do think it would aid transparency if committee members who are active on the off-wiki forums we're discussing here disclose it when voting or offering an opinion. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Ferret

I'd like an opinion on this as well, not necessarily just for RFA. Specific to WP:Discord, I !voted in the Discord RFC to restrict copying and linking Discord messages. I did so based on my reading of OUTING, HARASSMENT, and the community expectations of IRC logs, rather than strictly what I'd prefer. That consideration included what Joe references about the copyright concern of "private" messages, which seems to be part of the long standing rationale around IRC messages. I've also seen several times people suggest that OUTING goes as far as covering someone outing themselves on another Wikimedia project (i.e. a user page on eswiki), meaning that's not good enough to mention here on English Misplaced Pages. Prior to SUL, that may well have been, but SUL is long done. So what I'm really driving at is: Where is the line on identifying yourself sufficiently to be mentioned on site? Particular to the Discord, we have OAuth integration through an open source bot hosted on WMF resources. Is this enough to count as self-disclosure? Or does the connection to Discord have to be on-site (i.e. a userbox or otherwise)? Revisiting the Discord RFC is on the community, but some of these questions, such as EMAILPOST and how OS will act, are at least partially under Arbcom as Joe notes. -- ferret (talk) 13:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 Thanks. I have heard this said (Re: disclosure on other Wikimedia projects) repeatedly, but I did not know where it might actually be stated. -- ferret (talk) 19:09, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

Regarding Ferret's comments regarding disclosures on other SUL wikis. I have a vague recollection that this was discussed previously, but I don't remember where. I don't think a single hard and fast rule can be applied to that, but it's a matter of how reasonable it is to expect en.wp editors to be aware of the disclosure. For example if you make a disclosure on another wiki and you prominently link to that page from your userpage here, that should count as disclosing it here. If you disclose something on your e.g. eswiki userpage and make it clear on your userpage here that you contribute to eswiki, then again it's reasonable to take that as having been disclosed to the English Misplaced Pages. However, if you state something on the e.g. Russian wikisource's equivalent of Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style, and don't link to that page here, then it has not been disclosed to the English Misplaced Pages. Obviously there will be many things in between the extremes that can only be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, unless you are sure it has been intentionally or obviously disclosed somewhere it is reasonable to expect English Misplaced Pages editors to be aware of, then assume it has not been disclosed. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Barkeep49 so basically what I said just more clearly and a lot more concisely! Thryduulf (talk) 19:05, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: there are two issues with connecting accounts elsewhere. The first is ensuring that connections are actually correct, i.e. User X here is the same person as user X elsewhere - even sharing relatively unusual names like Thryduulf is not a guarantee (I remember finding a user Thryduulf that was nothing to do with me a few years ago, user:Thrydwulf is nothing to do with me). The second issue is that editors have a reasonable expectation of privacy and are allowed to choose to disclose things in other communities that they do not want to disclose here. Thryduulf (talk) 09:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@Lightburst: Oversight did not ignore you. Primefac replied to you (Arbs and OSers it was ticket #2024060810000607) explaining that they saw no outing issues and thus nothing for the OS team to do because the editor concerned has made an on-wiki connection between WO and WP. Based on what you've written here it seems that the reason for your request was misunderstood, but you should have replied noting that. As far as the oversight team was aware you were OK with the outcome. Thryduulf (talk) 18:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by hako

I think the community wants to have pretty firm protections against doxxing I'd like the committee to make an explicit distinction between persons involved in the act of doxxing (or say vote canvassing or any other misconduct) on third-party sites, and persons who participate on those sites but are not abettors. It's futile to overreach and police what editors do and say outside wikipedia. Hypothetically speaking, I can say whatever I want on any third party site with a fictitious name, without any possibility of repercussion on my activity on wikipedia. Arbcom should act exclusively on cases where they find evidence of misconduct by an editor off-wiki without attaching any vicarious liability to other participants on that off-wiki platform. — hako9 (talk) 19:40, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich JSS/Beebs, you posted in that same thread over there six times since that post was made, and not a single word about this very open threat. What is JSS supposed to do? Chide Vigilant aggressively so that they stop doxxing? As if that would work? The doxxing is going to happen whether editors here participate there or not. — hako9 (talk) 23:14, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Jclemens

CaptainEek Statements like there is never a situation that calls for linking to or discussing a Wikipediocracy thread are problematic. Are you suggesting that if I were to discuss my resignation of the tools in late 2013, a Wikipediocracy post--that persists to this day in somewhat redacted form--doxxing me and listing my employer's name and phone number and my home address and phone number (that were redacted so quickly by WPO leadership I couldn't confirm their accuracy) and several other identifying bits of information would be off limits for me to bring up to discuss the circumstances of my tools resignation? I'd like to think that, as the person doxxed, it is my prerogative to mention, discuss, or even link to such a thread, and the clear sense of WP:OUTING is that such linkage would be permitted if done by me. (For the record, none of the information is particularly threatening to me 10 1/2 years later. Those overly interested can Google my current employer and discover why.) Jclemens (talk) 18:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

One of the first things I did after learning about it was searching my own name on there; boy was that a bad decision. CaptainEek, you highlight one of the ongoing negatives of Wikipediocracy: regulars there have a love/hate, but mostly hate, relationship with Misplaced Pages administrators that can have a demoralizing effect on Misplaced Pages editors. While I would also not recommend any admin or outspoken user search the site for their username, once having done so, it can be instructive to see how particular actions are discussed. In at least one case, only after being pointed to Wikipediocracy and reading the relevant thread did I understand the opposition to a stance I took. So while linking to criticism of another editor may well remain off limits, each mentioned editor should be made aware of the potential to review critics' unfiltered thoughts at the site. Jclemens (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich

A couple of days ago on WPO, Vigilant, the WPO user who most often doxes Misplaced Pages editors and openly threatens to continue doing so, wrote, in response to Eek's comments here, "Sounds like Eek needs an exposé" (link omitted). JSS/Beebs, you posted in that same thread over there six times since that post was made, and not a single word about this very open threat. Here, your third post is "Dispairaiging remarks like 'No need to point people to WPO to hear ten blocked trolls give their opinions on it.' aren't helpful." That's pretty bad: you take the time to criticize someone for criticizing WPO, but you don't criticize WPO for threatening to 'expose' editors.

(Also, Beebs, give up the "but they read it!" line of argument. Of course people who criticize WPO read it. Just like people on WPO read Misplaced Pages even though they criticize Misplaced Pages. This is not the "gotcha" that you seem to think it is: if people didn't criticize things they read, or didn't read the things they criticize, there would no criticism at all. Perhaps that's what you want?)

So w/r/t JSS's comment in the OP that "this has the potential to create a chilling effect where users will be afraid to post anything at all on off-wiki criticism sites," that chilling effect is good and we want that. Just like WPO is trying to create a chilling effect on Misplaced Pages by threatening to dox editors they disagree with, Misplaced Pages should create a chilling effect, or a taboo, about participating in off-wiki websites that dox editors, even if those websites refer to themselves as "criticism sites." There are other reasons not to have a blanket prohibition on linking or referring to another website (one of those reasons is so we can call people out for their wikipediocracy hypocrisy, as I am doing here), but "chilling effect" ain't it. Levivich (talk) 19:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by JPxG

While I think the idea of prohibiting mention of the ignominious badsites and offsites was done with the best of intentions, it seems to very obviously and directly facilitate and enable any manner of bad behavior. In general, the way it ends up working in practice is something like:

• There is some RfC onwiki about whatever subject.
• Somebody (whether an editor here or not) makes a thread on WPO called "Giant Morons Trying To Ruin Everything By Voting For Option 2".
• Nobody can bring up the existence of this thread, because it is an unmentionable badsite.
• For some mysterious reason that nobody could possibly fathom, the RfC has 500% more participation than usual, and is uncharacteristically nasty.
• We all have to just sit there and grit our teeth at this skulduggery.

Here is another example:

• Someone on WPO makes a thread gratuitously insulting a Misplaced Pages user, in which all sorts of unbelievably nasty things are said about them, possibly under their real name.
• Nobody can mention or link to this thread, because it is an unmentionable badsite.
• Someone says: "Uh, well, nobody has any evidence that WPO ever did anything wrong, you know it's just a myth".
• We all have to just sit there and grit our teeth at this skulduggery.

Another:

• Somebody signs up for a WPO account to respond to a thread about them, or to correct a misunderstanding, or something along these lines, and their posts are 100% anodyne and unobjectionable.
• Nobody can link to the posts, or mention what they actually said, because it is an unmentionable badsite.
• Someone says: "Uh, well, I could NEVER trust someone who hangs out on WPO, you know they dox people there".
• We all have to just sit there and grit our teeth at this skulduggery.

Whatever the reasoning was behind this omerta stuff, it seems in practice to have almost entirely bad implications -- it certainly doesn't stop people from going to WPO and doing whatever they want (trash-talking other editors, getting out the vote for RfCs/AfDs/etc, weird mafioso larping) -- the only thing it actually stops is us talking about it or doing something about it.

Contrariwise, this isn't even much of a benefit for WPO -- people onwiki are also completely free to just say stuff with no evidence because "well I can't link to it or tell anybody what it is". jp×g🗯️ 03:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure if there's any way for me to mention this site and avoid the inevitable dual-front pissing and moaning where somebody on here accuses me of being pro-WPO and threatens to drag me to whatever, while simultaneously somebody on WPO accuses me of being anti-WPO while posting a thread under my real name in the public section of the forum and also claims that it's not doxing because if you spend a half-hour digging through my contributions you can see that my username was originally my real name -- well, whatever man, can I at least get a T-shirt? jp×g🗯️ 03:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

While we are on the subject, the idea that single-sentence quotations of offsite communications need to be removed as copyright violations is just completely false as far as I can tell -- there is literally no other part of Misplaced Pages where we make the ridiculous claim that quoting with attribution one sentence from a published work is a copyvio. It's one thing if we want to have a rule against it, but it would be better to do so without unnecessarily lying about how copyright law works, and if we actually do this in policy anywhere it should really be fixed for the sake of avoiding embarrassment. jp×g🗯️ 03:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: If it's possible to clarify that we are allowed to discuss offsite happenings, I think this would be a big improvement. Currently, if I link to a Wikipediocracy thread, I do so by ignoring what people have told me the rules are; the examples I give are meant as a rejoinder to "there is never a situation that calls for linking to or discussing a Wikipediocracy thread".

@Just Step Sideways: I think this thing about "collective punishment" doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- I agree that it would be dumb to block somebody simply because they hang out on the daily with a strange stalker online, and you clearly do not exert control over the dox guy. At the same time, though, isn't it kind of straightforward why people would dislike when you show up to a thread on WPO where someone is being harassed, and then make posts in the thread to say negative things about them? jp×g🗯️ 04:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

@Lightburst: So your preference is, when a discussion is canvassed from an external site, that we are forbidden to mention or acknowledge it? jp×g🗯️ 17:07, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Valjean

As the victim of doxxing (and threats of same) and nasty, uncivil, and snide criticism on the named off-wiki website by at least one admin (who should lose their tools) and a few fringe(*) editors here, the comment by @Just Step Sideways: is very ironic. (* "Fringe" is defined as editors who get their POV from unreliable sources and edit and discuss accordingly here.) Just Step Sideways writes:

"I feel like this has the potantial to create a chilling effect where users will be afraid to post anything at all on off-wiki criticism sites,.."

Whatever happened to the matter of far more importance to Misplaced Pages, and that is the chilling effect HERE created by those nasty off-wiki comments from other editors who should be considered good-faith colleagues here? How can one edit and discuss around such editors and ever feel safe again? The "enjoyment of editing" here is totally undermined by them. Trust has been violated. The chilling effect is enormous and constant, and one lives under a cloud of pressure from their illicit and bad faith stalking and harassment. I know this will immediately be reported there by traitors from here, but it needs to be said.

Editors need to be protected, and their enjoyment of editing here should not be threatened by uncollegial criticism, snide comments, and threats of doxxing elsewhere. It invites even worse behavior from bad actors who may not even be editors here. It's a dog whistle. Editors need to make a choice between their loyalty to Misplaced Pages and its editors versus their social life elsewhere. Keep a wall between them. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to @Levivich:, @Vanamonde93:, and @JPxG: for your insights. You seem to understand the problem. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite

Puzzling that Beebs would feel the need to poke a stick into a beehive. This is not an Arb matter, if anything it is a community matter, and it's really not that. Criticism websites have existed almost as long as there has been a Misplaced Pages and over these 15+ years, people have a pretty good implied understanding of what is in and what is out. Mentions are one thing, links maybe another. In any event, it strikes me as dumb to overgeneralize about a message board as it is to overgeneralize about Misplaced Pages — projecting its worst foibles as in some way representative of the whole. This is clearly a No Action sort of request, methinks, and good for that. For those of you who demonize WPO, pop over and have a beer with us sometime, we don't bite very hard. —tim /// Carrite (talk) 23:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• @Jclemens - >>While I would also not recommend any admin or outspoken user search the site for their username, once having done so, it can be instructive to see how particular actions are discussed. In at least one case, only after being pointed to Wikipediocracy and reading the relevant thread did I understand the opposition to a stance I took. So while linking to criticism of another editor may well remain off limits, each mentioned editor should be made aware of the potential to review critics' unfiltered thoughts at the site. — This pretty much gets to the heart of things. It's a criticism site, by definition. If one is above criticism or if one never makes mistakes or if one believes that Misplaced Pages is flawless and problemless — back off, stay away, there is nothing to see because you have nothing to learn. If you want to partake of slightly-filtered criticism, to have issues raised in an aggressive manner under a spotlight, venture forth if you desire. At its best, WPO is to Misplaced Pages as Sixty Minutes is to government agencies. The mission is not "to out and harass." Carrite (talk) 23:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
• @Levivich - Do not necessarily conclude that the lack of publicly-viewable criticism of a WPO poster's material means there is nothing happening backstage. WPO has a Direct Messages system and there are behavioral requests made there periodically which will never show up in a thread. Don't make the mistake of calling out inaction until you know there was actually no action. Carrite (talk) 00:03, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
• @JPxG - See you soon. ;-) Carrite (talk) 00:06, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Mangoe

We rejected this back in 2007. Could we please stop trying to sneak it back in? Mangoe (talk) 00:11, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Lightburst

@JPxG: Are there other ways to report or deal with canvassing? I am likely in the minority based on the inaction of all. It seems this discussion is about linking to off-wiki, and the collective yawn from those in positions of power might give you your answer. Lightburst (talk) 18:18, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: Thanks for the message. I see a few messages in my junk mail. After reading them, the fact remains: all concerned did nothing to remove the link. The link to off-wiki PAs is still there in the AfD. This seems like a work around for leveling PAs, i.e. join WPO, disparage a Misplaced Pages editor and then link to it on Misplaced Pages. I am definitely not OK with linking to off-wiki sites like WPO. Lightburst (talk) 19:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by isaacl

Regarding copyright of email: as I've discussed previously, the real issue is privacy, and not copyright. Copyright doesn't prevent paraphrasing, and is about protecting the author's rights to profit from their work. What the Misplaced Pages community can do to try to enforce expectations of privacy in email (either implicit or explicit) is limited. isaacl (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Darkfrog24

The state of things is that Misplaced Pages is an important website, and over the decades it's become a serious website. People may want to act and speak differently here than they do in less formal settings like Discord. The dress code at the office need not apply to the sidewalk. It can also be a frustrating website, and adopting a general policy of "Do what you like but don't do it here. Oh, you're already not doing it here? Okay we're good then" is probably the healthy response. We do have some precedent for sanctioning people for off-wiki actions, such as WP:MEATPUPPET, deliberately recruiting participants to affect on-Wiki events. But they've been pretty limited and pretty strictly defined. So while possibly sanctioning someone who harasses another Wikipedian for reasons directly related to Misplaced Pages might be appropriate, I've been very glad of WP:OUTING's strict take over the years.

Here I was saying to myself, "I can't think of any good reason someone would link to an off-Wiki thread that includes outing," and then JPxG gives us three. I still favor the strict protection of WP:OUTING, but now I know where the tradeoff is. This is a balance we strike and not a freebie that costs us nothing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:49, 22 June 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.

mentioning the name of off-wiki threads: Clerk notes

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

mentioning the name of off-wiki threads: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Thanks for raising this issue JSS. As the OS who did the noticeboard suppression which named a thread, your facts aren't quite right there, but I don't think that takes away from the larger point you're raising. And it's one I admit to some discomfort with in an RfA context. As it stands I think the community wants to have pretty firm protections against doxxing. I also think the community would care about certain off-wiki activities. For instance, if User:Foo had lost Stewardship due to abuse on Miraheze/WikiTide there would be no cause for any action here, but I think the community would want to consider that information before passing someone at RfA. So don't have any answers (yet) but wanted to acknowledge some thoughts I had as I wait to see what other editors and arbs say. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf the wording about other projects is found in note 1 of the harassment policy. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:58, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG: your 3 situations confuse me. At the moment I'm not aware of anyone taking administrative action against scenario 1. Am I wrong here? For situation 2, it feels like whether or not "possibly under their real name" happens will matter a huge amount. If there's not a real name, I'm not aware of practice/procedure to suggestion action against (as with scenario 1). If there is a real name that has not been revealed under policy, it would seem to be eligible for oversighting. Are you suggesting that WPO be exempt from Oversighting in this scenario? And I don't understand what you're suggesting is the real impact of scenario 3. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

  JPxG, thanks that's helpful in explaining things. No arb - not even CaptainEek who has spoken out the most strongly against WPO - is saying you can't ever link (let along mention) WPO and we both know WP:BADSITES is a failed proposal. However, if a link reasonably serves to harass someone the link would be inappropriate and writing a comment that includes such a link could be a conduct issue (depending on other factors). If the link reasonably serves to doxx someone (which is one form of harassment), it would make the comment with the link eligible for overisghting. The odds are higher that a link to WPO is a form of harassment than a link to say reddit (as another forum based community), but even that doesn't mean linking to most threads at WPO would be harassment. Most threads at WPO not having harassment also doesn't mean that a link couldn't have been harmless when posted, but turns into harassment (though no fault of the person posting) after the fact because there is subsequently outing that could reasonably be found by clicking on the link. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

• I want to take more time to look into this so I can make a more informed opinion, but wanted to note that I am paying close attention to this and appreciate the statements given so far. I think it's important to note that the current wording of WP:OUTING requires self-disclosure on Misplaced Pages in order for the disclosure of off-wiki profiles to not constitute outing, and I think it's important to view these issues through that lens unless and until that policy is amended. - Aoidh (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
  • I do think this is something that the community as a whole needs to address, as these effect fundamental policies. If there are aspects that only ArbCom can address then we should do so, but the broad discussion is something the community should shape and change as needed. @Just Step Sideways: emailing ArbCom and saying that you did so on Misplaced Pages should not in and of itself carry any weight whatsoever, and doing this should not protect that editor from the consequences of their actions on Misplaced Pages or negate their responsibilities as an editor (WP:CIVILITY, WP:OUTING, etc.). @Joe Roe: there is a userbox disclosing the fact that I am on the Wikimedia Community Discord server. I am also on a few English Misplaced Pages-related IRC channels. Outside of that, I do not and to the best of my knowledge have never posted on any Misplaced Pages-focused off-wiki forum or made any comments about Misplaced Pages on any off-wiki forum. - Aoidh (talk) 22:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
• I have a lot of thoughts about this but might take some time to make them digestible. One thing though, I agree with you @Joe that the "copyright" justification for not posting emails is pretty dubious, at least in a modern Misplaced Pages context, and I know at least one other Arb felt a similar way last year. That said, I think it's reasonable to prohibit the posting of emails (or at least discourage it), and WP:EMAILPOST doesn't actually cite the "copyright" portion of the remedy~-- so I'm not actually sure if it's something that needs to be amended? Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure if I'm the arb mentioned (could be!), but there was a reason in the Discord RfC mentioned above that I said it and IRC should be treated equally. I think there's a fairly reasonable case that channel/server operators should be able to decide if logs can be posted onwiki or not and for that decision to be respected onwiki. Further the copyright justification (as opposed to just straight up "Wikipedians are concerned about privacy and this is one way we choose to protect it) for OS'ing off-wiki stuff has always felt weak to me. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:08, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• I see a lot of beating around the bush here, but it seems clear that the real issue here is Wikipediocracy. I do not recommend participation in WPO even as a "good guy" (the classic adage about wrestling with pigs applies). It has gotten more people into more drama than highschool theatre.With that said, there are two possible situations involving off-wiki content: 1) the content relies entirely on on-wiki evidence, but collates/comments on/brings to light the issue; or 2) the content relies on off-wiki/private evidence. In case of situation 1, if the underlying diffs could be posted on wiki without say outing someone, then just post the underlying diffs. No need to point people to WPO to hear ten blocked trolls give their opinions on it. Its not that you're forbidden from discussing the nonsense at WPO, but its not recommended and can in fact be avoided. In the case of situation 2, you shouldn't be posting that on-wiki, because you're linking to content that wouldn't be okay on-wiki, like doxxing. Alluding to it is not an improvement in my book, because then you're just casting aspersions. Instead, it should get emailed to ArbCom, who can take action as necessary. The moral is that there is never a situation that calls for linking to or discussing a Wikipediocracy thread. CaptainEek ⚓ 03:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  Jclemens raises a good point about a situation I hadn't considered. If a person wants to acknowledge their own doxxing, they are free to do so, though it's again something I don't recommend. I agree that "never" is a bit hyperbolic, but my point with that phrase was not to say that it was verboten, but rather that it wasn't a wise choice. I stand by the idea that Its not that you're forbidden from discussing the nonsense at WPO, but its not recommended and can in fact be avoided. CaptainEek ⚓ 18:57, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  To extend on that idea and reply in part to Joe, I understand that this has been brought forward as a line drawing exercise. The community wants to know how close to the line it can get on linking this kind of stuff. My suggestion is that's the wrong inquiry. I go out of my way to avoid having to discuss WPO, because I find it a problematic and unhelpful site and think that referencing it feeds the trolls. If you don't share my opinion, than I understand how you might find my advice not helpful at resolving the underlying issue here. I stand by my aversion to WPO though; one of the best pieces of advice I have received was to never get a WPO account (and to any newer editors reading, please, avoid WPO. It will only do you harm). To reply to JSS, I have read WPO threads; it's an unpleasant experience. One of the first things I did after learning about it was searching my own name on there; boy was that a bad decision. Still, having to read WPO threads is an occasional part of Arb business. Thus I stand by my blocked trolls comment, the power posters at WPO include a lot of our nastiest trolls. CaptainEek ⚓ 19:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  In furtherance of the line drawing exercise, I suggest that perhaps ArbCom isn't the one to answer that question. I think the issue is that the recent RfA reforms and our harassment/doxxing policy are slightly at odds. The community has expressed a very strong desire to not have doxxing material on-wiki. But it has also expressed it wants detailed reasonings for oppose votes at RfA. Those two aspects have come into conflict with one another, and absent further input from the community, we are continuing to lean on the side of caution. CaptainEek ⚓ 19:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• I appreciate the feedback and discussion among the community (and arbs) so far. I am inclined to say that the community will need to reconcile its wishes. In particular it's up to the community to decide how it wants to reconcile OUTING and the new expectations at RfA and whether or not it wants to review past decisions about DISCORD/IRC/EMAIL (Joe Roe rightly points out that some of this sprung from arbcom interpretations, but as I think it has been adopted and expanded by the community it's not for ArbCom to say one way or another anymore as that would be a policy change). As it stands I agree with Floquenbeam's analysis when it comes to RfA: we will not link to (or obliquely mention) any thread with outing/doxxing; consider whether it is accessible to the public so it can be verified; and consider whether the WP user has linked themselves to the off-wiki account. If any of the 3 tests fail, then you can't bring it up at RFA. However, I do agree with Joe and others that the Committee has some role to play, though I would prefer to share that role with the broader Oversight team. With OS, I find that 98% or so of the OS requests are clear yes or clear no under policy and require little thought on my part to action. It's the remaining 2% where the OS team should work to have consistency (I think ArbCom should set the expectation that there be less variation in OS response than in other admin areas, including CU). In the noticeboard example that JSS gives, this fell in that 2% which is why I consulted with someone else before taking action. Beyond this, there has been a lot of discussion about WPO of which I have a number of opinions about but is also not a unique use case when it comes to mentioning/linking to off-wiki threads/discussions which I see as the matter before us and thus doesn't need any special analysis beyond what I've written above. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:57, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• My conclusions are formed after reading the above, but not the pertaining information at WPO. I do not take an absolutist "never link WPO" approach; there could be some valid reasons to link to an off-wiki site. However, it is the responsibility of the person linking the thread to ensure that OUTING does not happen. This means that, before posting a link on-wiki, the editor needs to review all the material on the page to ensure that the outing doesn't happen. For this circumstance, there are options like emailing ArbCom to ensure OUTING does not take place. I would like to see community consultations about how OUTING should be applied, as this is becoming a common topic at ARBCOM and might need an update. My own personal opinion to editors who are reading WPO: your time is probably better spent improving an article on Misplaced Pages, or having the conversation on-wiki. I'm not sure there are any motions that will arise from this, but I'm happy to answer any questions if pinged. Z1720 (talk) 01:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• To answer "More specifically, a 2007 remedy pronouncing that quoting private correspondence is a copyright violation is still on the books and still cited in WP:EMAILPOST. Does the current committee agree with this interpretation?", I personally do not find the copyright argument that has been en vogue for about 20 years about publishing emails to be convincing. I probably need to look at the literature again, but I do not know of any case law where the copyright claim was successful. --Guerillero 21:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Initiated by EggRoll97 at 03:36, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

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

• EggRoll97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Statement by EggRoll97

Multiple pages protected under contentious topics procedures this year alone (see WP:AEL#Armenia-Azerbaijan_(CT/A-A) for just a sample) have been protected under arbitration enforcement but have no editnotice or other restriction notice applied to the page. This is despite a line recurring in contentious topics procedures pages being, in part, When a page has active page restrictions, the following template must be used as an editnotice, and the contentious topics procedures page itself stating that an editnotice is required prior to blocking an editor for a violation, even if they are aware of contentious topics procedures, with the language of However, breaches of a page restriction may result in a block or editor restriction only if: The editor was aware that they were editing in a contentious topic, and The restricted page displayed an editnotice ({{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} or a derived topic-specific template) specifying the page restriction.

Because of this, I ask for clarification as to whether these editnotices can be added to pages by any editor if the enforcing administrator has not done so, or whether they may only be added by the administrator who has applied the page restriction.

ToBeFree Based on your statement, would I be correct in assuming there would be no problem (procedurally-wise?), if, for example, I went through the list of pages logged as "indef ECP" or similar in the enforcement log, and added topic-specific editnotices to them? While I've seen some commentary below about the efficacy of these editnotices, I personally find it helpful to have these types of editnotices present on pages just for the purposes of having a big banner to tell me a certain page is applicable to CTOP. EggRoll97 23:07, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Selfstudier

The edit notice can be added by editors with the page mover permission. Idk whether the idea of CT was to do away with this requirement but I don't think it did so in my usual area (AI/IP), the Arbpia edit notice (and talk page notice which can be added by any editor) is needed in general.Selfstudier (talk) 08:43, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Firefangledfeathers

Editnotices can be created by administrators, page movers, and template editors. If an editnotice exists, most editors can edit it, and I'd support non-admins rectifying clerical errors wherever possible. Speaking of which, if someone wants to collect some pages that need editnotices, I'm happy to cross a bunch of them off the list.

Arbs, I'd suggest that common practice has moved away from such editnotices being necessary. Between admins forgetting, banner blindness, and mobile editors not seeing them at all, I don't think the notices are meaningful in generating awareness of the restriction. Enforcement of restrictions these days tends to be dependent on both formal CTOP awareness and a request to self-revert being ignored or declined, meaning a few other checks are in place to avoid unwarranted sanctions. Would the committee consider changing this requirement to a recommendation? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:43, 11 June 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.

Contentious topics restrictions: Clerk notes

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

Contentious topics restrictions: Arbitrator views and discussion

• My read of the procedures is that edit notices are not required when an entire topic area is under a particular restriction (e.g. 1RR) or if an individual administrator changes the protection level under the CT procedures. They are required id an individual administrator places a page restriction (other than protection) on an individual page. The key phrasing is, for me, An administrator who imposes a page restriction (other than page protection) must add an editnotice to restricted pages using the standard template ({{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} or a derived topic-specific template), and should generally add a notice to the talk page of restricted pages.(formatting removed). Barkeep49 (talk) 22:06, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• The main purpose of these edit notices, to me, is informing users about a restriction so they can adhere to it. This is not needed for page protection; MediaWiki both displays details about the protection and prevents restriction violations at the same time. The protection text already contains the needed information (Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics § Logging). All users automatically adhere to page protections, which is probably why Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics § Restriction notices explicitly exempts them from the editnotice requirement.Topic-wide restrictions such as the extended-confirmed restriction can be enforced with blocks as long as a user is (formally) aware of the restriction; edit notices are not required for the imposition or enforcement of topic-wide restrictions. A user restricted from editing about weather must not edit about weather, and they may be blocked to prevent them from continuing to do so even if the affected pages didn't display a huge "this is a weather-related page" edit notice above them.This makes the actual question less relevant than EggRoll97 may have thought, but the answer is that {{Contentious topics/editnotice}}, which explains topic-wide restrictions, may be added by anyone technically able to do so, and {{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice}} is for use by administrators who impose a different page restriction than page protection. It will rarely be missing where it is actually required, but it if is actually clearly missing somewhere, I'd recommend simply asking the enforcing administrator to fix the issue. The existence of a page restriction (other than page protection) begins with the creation of the edit notice to my understanding, so failing to place the edit notice doesn't do the action incorrectly, it simply fails to take action at all. This is why, to me, page restrictions other than page protection can't be "fixed" by anyone else. They simply don't exist. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  EggRoll97, I think adding {{Contentious topics/editnotice|XYZ}} as an edit notice to pages clearly fully related to XYZ would be helpful, even if no protection has happened yet.
  Adding {{Contentious topics/editnotice|...|section=yes}} as an edit notice to pages related to XYZ closely enough to justify an existing CTOP page protection would also be helpful.
  There's an exception though: I wouldn't add {{Contentious topics/editnotice|blp}} to BLPs, as being in Category:Living people already causes {{BLP editnotice}} to appear. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think this can be closed as answered. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• To answer whether these editnotices can be added to pages by any editor if the enforcing administrator has not done so, yes; adding an edit notice where one is missing is something anyone (with the correct permissions) is able to do. Primefac (talk) 13:55, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Initiated by Clovermoss at 16:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Noleander 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:

• Clovermoss (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• ජපස (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Hydrangeans (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• FyzixFighter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Awilley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Horse Eye's Back (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ghosts of Europa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Elinruby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Pbritti (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Red-tailed hawk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• HaeB (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Clovermoss

This case was recently linked in a disagreement over at Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints#Distinguishing characteristic of this church. Horse Eye's Back asked if an editor was a member of the church here and Hydrangeans linked to the above case here. Responses were . I'm not trying to open a case request about LDS editing but simply clarify if there is a COI exemption under principle 9. I think COI concerns qualify as a legitimate purpose. But I also don't think that a person editing an article about their perceived religious beliefs is inherently a COI that needs to be disclosed per WP:EXTERNALREL. I think there needs to be a higher bar than "you're editing this article. Are you x?" Therefore I think there's some vagueness here that should be clarified.

@Horse Eye's Back: Can you provide a diff for your assertion here? I have the page on my watchlist and I did not see a comment like that by Awilley. It's possible I missed something while reading recent comments. I also ask that you refrain from saying stuff like this because it can give other editors like me the false impression that you mean this more generally. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:55, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible you mean this comment? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This issue has broader implications in the community. I link to a discussion about that in my "are you x?" statement above. There, an editor said They're all variations on the same theme: asking personal information under the guise of asking about COI. (I'll note that this is part of a comment made by User:Tryptofish and they've commented that they think this is a community issue below). I think it's important to clarify the threshold for when asking or stating that editors must disclose said information lies. I understand why editors are hesitant to restrict such questions but I also think there has to be a line somewhere. This principle would suggest there is. Given that there was an ANI discussion where this principle was mentioned in a completely different matter a few days ago, I think that it's going to be continued to be used by editors unless ArbCom decides to clarify this one way or another. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Clovermoss was not an involved party and consulted with exactly none of the involved parties is not strictly correct. I wrote a comment in that talk page discussion before that exchange happened. I've also had that page on my watchlist for quite some time and occasionally participate in discussions there. I rarely edit LDS topics directly. As far as I can remember, this is the most substantial edit I have ever made to the article in question . My interest is mostly explained by how the LDS share some similarities with Jehovah's Witnesses and more broadly, the Bible Student Movement. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 05:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Also the newly added parties by Horse Eye's Back makes this three recent disputes entirely unrelated to each other that have involved people mentioning this principle. I think clarification is a good idea. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd also like to bring greater attention to the discussions that FyzixFighter linked that show the community has already discussed this to some extent. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:12, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by ජපස

I think that (a) religious faith is not disconfirming for editing material relevant to that faith tradition but (b) it is not not disconfirming either. For me, in an ideal world, Misplaced Pages would stick to these general principles:

1. Wikipedians should be under no obligation to identify their faith tradition. There is no religious test for editing Misplaced Pages.
2. Wikipedians should be allowed to ask whether another editor has a faith tradition without being accused of violating WP:NPA. To pretend that the religious faith of an editor is never relevant is just as problematic as arguing that it is always relevant.
3. When an editor makes an edit that appears to another editor to violate general editorial principles of this website in favor of an approach preferencing a certain religious faith position, it should not be out-of-bounds in editorial discussion to make this point. Having an argument or edit criticized for such should not necessarily be considered a personal attack.
4. To the extent that people feel like they may be subject to personal attack in these contexts, it would be helpful if they communicated this to the person that they feel attacked them. WP:CIVILity as a principle works best when people are honest about the impact of various statements on them rather than appealing to generalized standards that are not necessarily shared across the wide communities that Misplaced Pages encompasses.

I know that my position is likely the minority one, but I still maintain that this is a better system than the current Don't Ask, Don't Tell-like approaches others seem to favor.

jps (talk) 17:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Hydrangeans

On whether religious background constitutes a COI requiring disclosure and therefore should be exempt from the expectation in principle 9 of Noleander, I'd point out a recent ANI thread (permalink; for transparency it was a thread I commented in) in which users described as disruptive behavior an editor acting on a belief that being Muslim constituted a conflict of interest with Islam (primarily in the context of how that editor assessed the independence of academically published authors, though OP also brought up that the editor implied Muslim users should be disregarded in discussions about Muslim topics) (the editor was ultimately topic banned from pages about Islam; other reasons expressed included POV editing, and Noleander was also cited). This suggests that considering religious affiliation a COI requiring disclosure, as Horse Eye's Back claims (clarify your COI, if you are a member of this faith you do need to disclose that), isn't an interpretation broadly shared by the community and that some consider such an interpretation disruptive.

I'm inclined to Ghosts of Europa's point that treating religious background (or racial or ethnic background for that matter, the other examples in Noleander) as a COI, expecting it to be disclosed, and considering questions about such unproblematic has an unproductive chilling effect. Whatever the intent behind such questioning, its outcome can result in circumventing the process of achieving consensus in discussions by focusing on participants' perceived backgrounds instead of focusing on content.

While Noleander recognizes the possibility that posing a reference or question could in rare cases clearly serve a legitimate purpose, it must do so clearly, and in most cases—including this case—it's possible, and more relevant, to focus on content, making personal questions about one's background unnecessary and inappropriate. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@My very best wishes: someone going to certain Church and paying their dues may fall under WP:COI per "Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial (including holding a cryptocurrency)—can trigger a COI.". Being a member of a religious organization is not different from being a member of any other private or public organization, and as such can trigger WP:COI. I'd agree it's not necessarily different from being a member of other organizations but with the opposite conclusion. The quoted sentence from WP:COI is followed by a reminder that How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Misplaced Pages is governed by common sense. To consider affiliation a COI of concern to Misplaced Pages and therefore requiring disclosure would seem to imply that donating and/or newsletter-receiving members of political parties have a COI (and so users voting Democrat/Republican should disclose before editing Franklin D. Roosevelt/Abraham Lincoln?), or that a user who pays the monthly unlimited ride fare for the MTA has a COI (and so shouldn't edit articles about New York subways?) (with apologies for the US-centric examples).Even that train of thought aside, in the ANI threat I referenced, there were editors who rejected this thinking (as aforementioned, mostly in the context of assessing sources, but COI as a user was also brought up; a user expressed belief that an employee of a mosque has a COI with that mosque but that being a practicing Muslim wasn't in itself an actionable COI with Islam). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by FyzixFighter

The question in general appears to me to be whether or not COI provides cover for asking for another editor's religious affiliation, contrary to principle 9 here. Such a question assumes that there is necessarily a contradiction between the two, and I would argue there is none. First, multiple discussions on WP:COIN and the policy talk page of WP:COI have agreed that membership in a religion does not rise to the level of a required disclosure of COI. See for example Misplaced Pages talk:Conflict of interest#Updated proposed text for a shorter and clearer COI guideline, Misplaced Pages talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 34#Religious COI, Misplaced Pages talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 31#Clearer on religious background, Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 190#Question about whether being a former member of a religion counts as a COI. I can find no instances where the community has said that being a member of a religion, current or former, is a reportable COI. Second, even if religious affiliation did require disclosure (and again there is no evidence the community considers this to be the case), the process for dealing with an undisclosed COI does not involve demanding or referencing the suspected religious background. Rather, per WP:COI#How to handle conflicts of interest, the correct process is to ask the user on their talk page if they have an undisclosed COI relative to the article subject. If that fails to resolve the issue, the next step is to take it to WP:COIN. Just as there is no necessary contradiction between WP:OUTING and WP:COI, there is no contradiction here.

With regards to this instance in particular, it has been noted in multiple places, including a ANI discussion earlier this year, that Horse Eye's Back's "interpretation of COI is way too expansive" than that defined in WP:COI. While Horse Eye's Back references COI, his description of the situation appears to be rather a concern of bias and advocacy. Most advocacy does not involve COI (such as, as noted previously, religious background), and is better addressed via WP:NPOVN instead of a discussion-chilling ultimatum that another editor self-OUT in the name of COI. Even if this did fall under COI, the proper process would have been to use Awilley's user talk page, ask if they had an undisclosed COI relative to the page (a simple yes/no question that does not require someone to self-OUT), and then go to COIN if there is additional question or concern. Horse Eye's Back is aware of this process and it has been pointed out to them multiple times previously. And yet, they continue to choose not to follow it. --FyzixFighter (talk) 01:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Awilley

I haven't had time to read the Noleander case or even the follow-up conversation on the LDS talk page. I saw that there was a content dispute there the other day over the 1st sentence, so I chipped in with my 2 cents.

What seems to have triggered this was my lighthearted reaction to the hypothetical Q&A about how we should be introducing readers to unfamiliar topics in the first sentence. So the Q's are what questions the reader might have, and the A's are how we might be trying to answer those questions in the first sentence. Horse's Eye Back had proposed the following Q&A:

• Q: What is LDS? A: It's a church.
• Q: What kind of church? A: The Mormon kind.
• Q: Oh, how is it different from other Mormon churches I've heard of? A: It's Nontrinitarian.

I responded with:

@HEB: "how is it different from other Mormon churches I've heard of?"...said nobody ever. The non-LDS Mormon churches account for some tiny fraction of a percent of Mormons. "Mormon Church" refers unambiguously to the LDS Church, which is why it shows up so early in the 1st sentence. And the other "Mormon churches" are also nontrinitarian, so your A to Q3 is incorrect. The correct answer to Q3 is that this Mormon church doesn't allow polygamy.

This is true. If you break down the sects that claim Joseph Smith as founder, you get the following:

The Community of Christ (#2) does not fit into what we usually call "Mormonism". They never adopted the early "Mormon" tradition of polygamy, and because of the Utah polygamy, they did everything they could to distance themselves from that branch, including rejecting the name "Mormon". There are also doctrinal differences. (They're trinitarian, Mormonism is nontrinitarian. Mormons accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, CoC not so much.)

That leaves us with Group #1 and Group #3. Group #3 as a whole is universally referred to as "Mormon Fundamentalism". Many of these groups continue to practice polygamy. If styleguides mention these groups, they're usually telling us not to refer to these small branches as "the Mormon Church".

The TLDR is: the words "Mormon Church" unambiguously refer to the LDS Church, even though the LDS Church rejects that title. That's what you'll find in pretty much any source that uses the term (which many don't). And that was the point I was trying to make with my lighthearted comment above. You don't need to differentiate the 99.75% from the 0.25% in the first sentence.

I don't really understand why HEB immediately assumed that was "bigotry" or why they're still making such a big deal out of this comment. I was just going to ignore it and move on, but now that we're here, I hope my statement helps clarify the matter. ~Awilley (talk) 21:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back

The Lead of Community of Christ (250,000 members, and by far the second largest group in the LDS Movement) says:

"While it generally rejects the term Mormon to describe its members, the church abides by a number of theological distinctions unusual outside Mormonism..."

Brittanica is more direct:

"The Community of Christ does not accept the appellation Mormon because of the association with polygamy."

which is basically what I said above.

Our article on The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) (the largest afaict of the churches you linked, with 23,000 members) says:

"Although the church acknowledges the Book of Mormon to be scripture, it does not consider itself to be a "Mormon church" as it is distinct from the largest Latter Day Saint church, based in Utah."

I'm not disputing anybody's "legitimacy as Mormons" as you put it. I'm following how reliable sources usually refer to them and how they refer to themselves. And nowhere did I express the opinion that the LDS Church was the one true anything. ~Awilley (talk) 02:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Horse Eye's Back

• I am not familiar with the Noleander case but will briefly comment on what Clovermoss has said... What triggered the question was not that Awilley was editing the page but that they expressed the opinion that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the only true Mormon Church and that all other groups were either not real Mormons or fringe polygamists. Thats a very extreme position that is hard to explain any other way than personal beliefs, my intent was not to disqualify them from the conversation but get them to confront the apparent prejudice in their argument and if not the result of religious bigotry to provide sources supporting the assertion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: yes that is the primary diff although their comments about RLDS appear to span a good chunk of the discussion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@Awilley: this seems to conviently gloss over a lot of groups that don't fit like The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite), Church of Christ (Temple Lot), Restoration branches, Church of Christ With the Elijah Message, etc... It also overlooks that your chosen source (Bushman) calls it a branch of Mormonism, but you dispute their legitimacy as Mormons. This oversimplification/erasure is the POV I'm talking about, it makes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seem like the only legitimate Mormon Church. Statements like "The Community of Christ (#2) does not fit into what we usually call "Mormonism"." do not dissuade me of the idea that there may be a COI at play here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I have added this conversation Misplaced Pages:No original research/Noticeboard#2021 Canadian church burnings and the related editors into the scope of the request as the dispute covers much the same ground, I brought this up on Clovermoss's talk page earlier, and Red-tail has since commented here. Relevent off-page diffs. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: to be fair none of this is standard... Clovermoss was not an involved party and consulted with exactly none of the involved parties before opening this request which is only tangentially related to the Arbcon case and for which there is no serious underlying dispute. They appear to have their own dog in the fight and have picked this case to take before Arbcon for reasons unknown... "Someone made a passing mention of this case in a discussion so lets file a formal request for clarification" isn't standard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:17, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jclemens: "Benefits need not necessarily be monetary, but they need be material (not spiritual or reputational) and to flow from the organization to the individual in order for a COI to exist." isn't true, non-material benefits absolutely count as COI (if they didn't there wouldn't in general be a COI with friends and family). If I'm a hiring manager I have a conflict of interest when it comes to my son's employment application even if I would recieve only non-material benefits from him being hired. For a more international persepctive see . Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jclemens: Reputational and religious considerations also come with indirect material benefits, but you said that those *don't* count as COI because there is no direct material benefit... In the literature religion clearly counts "These have been reviewed in an editorial by the PLoS Medicine editors (20) and include such issues as political, ideological or religious beliefs, personal friendships or enmity, academic favoritism or jealousy and personal ambition." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Ghosts of Europa

If we allow a COI exemption but define COI too broadly, I worry we'll create a chilling effect. It's one thing if you're employed as a priest. It's another if, like 1/8th of the world, you're a baptized Catholic who sometimes goes to church. Horse Eye's Back has said that even "belonging to a competitor" can be a COI. Does this mean Muslims need to declare themselves when editing the page Catholic Church? Do secular humanists? There are countless reasons people may not be comfortable publicly disclosing their religious beliefs. This could scare away a lot of editors who might otherwise do great work. Ghosts of Europa (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Tryptofish (Noleander)

I'm old enough in Wiki-years that I actually participated in giving evidence in the Noleander case. Here, it's been noted that a Principle from that case came up in talk during the present dispute. That Principle concerns the importance of not making "unnecessary references" to religious or other personal characteristics of other editors, distinguished from references that "clearly serve a legitimate purpose". It was arrived at in the context of an ArbCom case about alleged antisemitic content creation. I haven't followed the details of the present dispute, but I don't think the ArbCom case for which clarification is sought ever really dealt with COI issues (and thus, whether COI concerns do, or do not, "serve a legitimate purpose"). I think ArbCom can legitimately comment here that slurs or personal attacks against other editors (I'm not saying that such things occurred here) are impermissible, based on the WP:NPA policy and with or without ArbCom precedent. I'm inclined to think, however, that drawing the line between acceptable inquiries about COI, and unacceptable inquiries, is a community matter, rather than an ArbCom one. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Red-tailed hawk

My understanding is that editors are not required to disclose their religious affiliation when editing Misplaced Pages, and I think that Horse Eye's Back is plainly incorrect in this edit. As WP:EXTERNALREL notes, How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Misplaced Pages is governed by common sense. And—as common sense would dictate—merely being a rank-and-file member of the Mormon Church, or being a rank-and-file observant Jew, or being a rank-and-file member of more or less any mainstream religious community does not warrant cause for concern when participating in discussions on Misplaced Pages. It would be a terrible step for privacy if editors were required to post their religion publicly in order to make edits to Misplaced Pages's articles about religion, and our COI guideline plainly does not impose a general requirement to do so. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I will note that, when people have disclosed their religion, there have been some editors (including at least one administrator) who have argued and doubled down that doing so categorically excludes them from closing discussions in the whole of (say) WP:AP2. Those who fear a chilling effect of being forced to disclose religion are more than justified by past community reactions to those who do disclose their religion, even among mere rank-and-file low-church Protestants (such as in that example). As sort of thing has flared up in multiple instances, and the community can't quite resolve it, I think it would be best for ArbCom to issue a statement and put its foot down on this sort of behavior. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Separately, I will note that this addition of parties after the request being opened by someone other than the person who opened the request is somewhat non-standard. In good faith, certainly, but non-standard. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Elinruby

Hi. I have not been involved in this thread to date and am only vaguely aware of its history. I will be delighted to help the committee in any way, but until I have a better idea whether I am here over my remarks about Kaalakaa, the proper way of referring to the prophet Muhammed, or the genocide in residential schools, I think I will wait until someone asks me a question. Please ping. Based on a very fast skim, on the whole I tend to agree with jps, if that helps anyone somehow.

Also, committee members, please note that my email address currently does not work, so if someone answered me about my previously-submitted private evidence, I have not yet seen that. Nobody's fault but mine of course, so I guess I will go swap in a new email address pending any questions. Btw, Haeb seems to be trying to excuse himself based on his comments to HEB; since he has been hounding me about some of the above, if we are talking about those things here, then I think the day 15 hours he spent berating me for something or other is worthy of some scrutiny.

If the committee has not yet taken note of the private evidence, it went through the main Arbitration Committee link a couple-three days ago btw. Elinruby (talk) 06:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

• Since HEB has clarified that he added me to this request because of this thread I'd like to say that the Canadian residential school genocide should be designated a contentious topic. There is a false claim about the deaths of thousands of small children for a start, (Example, NSFW) and people have been showing up with shovels in an effort to "prove" the conspiracy theory that there are no dead bodies. There are half a dozen current RSN threads, notably this one, and also , an NPOV thread,, an RfC and a topic ban, not to mention the aspersions and inappropriate canvassing here by an editor I have actually admired, and whatever is going on in the current ANI thread titled "അദ്വൈതൻ now edit warring to insert sources which multiple editors have previously advised is unreliable". That ANI thread is probably a better example of how religious beliefs can be disruptive to the point of becoming relevant in my opinion however, as well as the ANI thread about Kaalakaa, who thought it was ok to describe Muslims as "licking their lips like snakes", or UrielAcosta's mass edits to change all references to the prophet Muhammed to say "the Islamic prophet Muhammed" because Muhammed was not, he said, *his* prophet.(lowercase_'p') The private evidence I referred to earlier is relevant to the thread HEB is pointing to, btw, though as I understand the rules it is still private evidence and I should not go into that here, not in this paragraph at least. The issue does however go well beyond what church that editor attends, so it is in my opinion a bad example for the clarification being asked here. Please ping me if there are questions. Elinruby (talk) 19:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Procedural question: Pbritti'ts behaviour continues even as he has been ignoring this thread. Should I write it up for ANI or, given the private evidence, should I file a case request? I am thinking that I may need to do that anyway for the CT designation, which I do think is needed. Can anyone provide any guidance on that? Or if there are still matters that need to be settled about this thread, maybe someone can get him to drop the stick at NORN until matters are a little more resolved. Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated. Elinruby (talk) 22:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I am sorry but I am genuinely confused. If, to take a hypothetical, someone had been educated at one of the most militant madrasas in Iran then had taught military tactics to Hamas, and was recreationally editing wikipedia to say that Israeli does not deserve to exist, would this be something to bring up in the context of their edits? That the adamant refusal to listen seems unlikely to change given that a matter of faith is involved?

I am also confused about what I am doing here listening to people talk about asking editors about their religion since I never had any need to ask Pbritti about his religion -- he has a userbox on his user page, if his beliefs were not already blindingly obvious from his sources. I asked him to declare his COI and he angrily refused. He then said he doesn't edit the residential school topic because he is biased, he says, against that system. He does edit those articles. He reverts people in those articles, and re-inserts the same content over and over. And we all chant AGF as this goes into its third month.Elinruby (talk) 02:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• @Guerillero: thank you for the clarification. I was concerned that seeming to ignore the committee might come across as IDHT if it did not agree with my assessment that adding my issue to this request was an understandable error. I will be glad to do that, but since both Clovermoss and Horse Eye's Back are now attempting to address the residential school issue, I think I will wait to see if either of them makes any headway. But again, thank you for the clarity. Elinruby (talk) 01:17, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

References

1. starts heree at 07:49 and ends here at 22:44 after he again declined to state his business or accept an apology for whatever he is upset about
2. The last character of that username will not display on my browser, so I can't link it

Statement by My very best wishes

Someone having merely a personal religious belief is a bias, not WP:COI. However, someone going to certain Church and paying their dues may fall under WP:COI per "Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial (including holding a cryptocurrency)—can trigger a COI.". Being a member of a religious organization is not different from being a member of any other private or public organization, and as such can trigger WP:COI. Therefore, asking if someone has an external relationship that could trigger a WP:COI is a legitimate question, not a discrimination. Still, it would be inappropriate to ask such a question just out of blue. That would be appropriate only if the behavior by a user indicates the presence of a significant COI that may negatively affect their editing. My very best wishes (talk) 15:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Hydrangeans. Yes, sure. WP:COI says it "can trigger", meaning it may or may not be the case of COI, depending on the context and specific circumstances. I think Barkeep49 has clarified this well. Could one participant politely ask another about a potential COI if appropriate (see above) and without making it a "personal attack"? Yes, one definitely can. My very best wishes (talk) 18:56, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Speaking on the Noleander case, it tells about "unnecessary references to the actual or perceived racial, religious, or ethnic background of fellow editors" and so on. Yes, absolutely. Merely a background of someone, and especially the ethnic one, is not COI. But a membership in an organization, a religious or nationalistic one, can be. My very best wishes (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jclemens. I am talking not about making voluntarily donations, but about being an official and faithful member of an organization that can be political, religious or other, such as Communist Party, Bruderhof Communities, Mormons, etc. That involves following certain set of rules, ideologies, and may include paying membership dues that are not necessarily voluntarily. Most importantly, this frequently includes faithfully serving the organization which can create a COI. This is not necessarily a priest or a commissar, this can be a rank and file member who faithfully promotes propaganda by the corresponding organization. My very best wishes (talk) 00:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

In other words, personal beliefs are just a bias, but religious institutions are external organizations, relationships with whom can trigger COI, or at least this is my understanding of this policy. My very best wishes (talk) 01:12, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

A COI and the relationship can be non-financial . Someone can push an institutional or personal agenda because of institutional loyalty, institutional indoctrination, etc. My very best wishes (talk) 03:59, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Jclemens (Noleander)

My very best wishes, this is entirely and totally backwards: However, someone going to certain Church and paying their dues may fall under WP:COI .... No, being an employee of or receiving dues, donations, tithes, fees for auditing, etc. is what triggers a COI. This is true for any other nonprofit, and probably also true for any other (e.g., commercial) organization that accepts money, but I haven't though that through enough to state that definitively. Giving money to an organization doesn't make one an owner, doesn't give one a financial stake in the outcome. It's less connected to the outcome of an organization than, say, sports betting is on the team or individual competitor in question: those are only problems when someone is betting on something they can personally influence. As you said right before your statement to which I take exception, Someone having merely a personal religious belief is a bias, not WP:COI. Jclemens (talk) 22:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

My very best wishes, thank you for your clarification, but I do not recognize the distinction you make as representing a valid COI in any usual or customary sense. COI is if the organization benefits me, not if I benefit the organization. Benefits need not necessarily be monetary, but they need be material (not spiritual or reputational) and to flow from the organization to the individual in order for a COI to exist. Jclemens (talk) 02:31, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@HEB, what you cite with respect to family members are indirect material benefits: while it might not be obligatory that your son will care for you in your old age, it is a foreseeable, socially expected outcome. What Viswanathan et al. (2013) are talking about is either bias or financial COI: anyone in academia will tell you that taking an unpopular position on a controversial topic will make future grant funding vanish. Religious or philosophical beliefs cannot be put on a balance sheet, even a highly speculative one. They can be absolutely real to people (see e.g. Rodney Stark on an economy of religion) and influence decisions but are more properly termed bias (=beliefs) rather than COI (=mercenary). Jclemens (talk) 19:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Zanahary

It seems the arguments in defense of the right to ask questions about an editor’s demography or associations in content disputes assume that it is useful to try and figure out why an editor, besides their stated rationale, might believe what they are saying. In other words, that it can be useful to figure out where an editor’s bias comes from.

This approach favors arguing with people rather than arguing for outcomes, and I don’t think it serves the encyclopedia well. It shouldn’t matter in a content dispute whether an editor’s apparent position can be explained by bias predictably related to their religious affiliation, their race, their country of origin, or their political alignment. Content disputes are about content, not the figures at play in its editing, and arguments about forces potentially influencing an editor’s perceptions, which in turn influence their position in the dispute, are personal arguments. Personal arguments should be avoided altogether, and there should certainly be no sacrifices made to protect their continued existence (consider the short bridge to personal attacks, and the necessarily discriminatory basis for making judgments of editors that take into account their religion, race, sex, nationality, and so on).

As for whether belonging to a church qualifies as a COI, I say certainly not, and there’s no reason why an interpretation of the COI policy that includes religious alignment wouldn’t also include an editor’s race, personal beliefs, place of origin, sexual orientation, et cetera.

Basically: questions about association and demography belong to disputes between editors, not disputes about content, and I urge the Committee not to protect the right to pursue personal disputes (which don’t serve the project) at the expense of the right to have one’s edits be interpreted free of personal and demographic baggage. And belonging to a church is not a COI. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad

As an arbitrator I drafted most of the decision in the Noleander case, which it's hard for me to believe was 13 years ago. I think the principles I drafted stand up well to rereading at this late date; but as I just pointed out in another section of this page, there is a limit to how much any discussion of current policy should be steered by a general principle contained in a wiki-ancient arbitration decision which, like any ArbCom decision, was written in the context of a particular set of facts.

That being said, those who flatter me by seeking guidance from principles contained in old ArbCom decisions that I drafted in my past wiki-life might also enjoy Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/International Churches of Christ#Conflict of interest, although the relevant policies have evolved somewhat since that time (as has the threshold of disruption necessary to trigger an ArbCom case to begin with, but I digress).

An editor's membership in a given religious group or adherence to particular religious beliefs, nor the lack of such membership or beliefs, does not give rise to a "conflict of interest" that must be disclosed or should generally be inquired about. In this context, non-neutral, biased, or otherwise disruptive editing can almost always be addressed on its own merits without asking intrusive questions about editors' personal attributes or beliefs. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:23, 6 July 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.

Noleander: Clerk notes

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

Noleander: Arbitrator views and discussion

• So I have opinions on this issue. What I am considering is whether or not this is the right forum to seek opinions and whether or not I should be offering my opinions as an arbitrator. It feels to me that we're primarily being asked to interpret policy. While we regularly interpet policy it is in service of one of our other duties and responsibilities, most often as part of acting as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve; this seems to reverse those things. The "hook" for us to interpret policy here is instead a principle which hasn't been used since 2011. I'm not sure that's a strong enough hook - especially given the way many other principles have extended lives either in future arbcom cases or because the community decides to add the interpretation into policy itself (e.g. WP:LOCALCON). I think a more interesting case could be made that that we're actually needed in our role as something the community has been unable to resolve, but I don't know that case has been proven/tried here either. TLDR: I'm reading this case and pondering what is appropriate for me to respond with. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not 100% convinved we have jurisidiction here. A major factor towards finding this is an appropriate forum is, for me, this year's COI case (more than the exact case (correctly) listed here for clarification) with there not being some superior community place to resolve it and we're already here with lots of community feedback as contributing factors. So I am convinced enough to respond substantively.

  It is possible to ask about certain characteristics of an editor including, but not limited to, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and, crucially for the question at hand, religion without that question being a personal attack. It is also possible, as no personal attacks notes itself, for such questions to be personal attacks. As such a judgement will need to be made based on the substance and context in order to decide if something is a personal attack. Further, the community has decided there are times when asking such questions is inappropriate and might otherwise be a behavioral issue of a kind other than being a personal attack (e.g. asking certain questions at RFA). There is also evidence that the community finds allegations that someone cannot edit an article solely because of personal characteristics such as religion to itself be a conduct issue that can be met with sanctions.

  In terms of the specific discussion here, I think it important to remember, per the 5 principles, that we are here to write an encyclopedia with a neutral point of view. Our COI guideline is a safeguard the community has wisely erected to achieve that goal. Nothing from my casual read of the conversation suggests any inappropriate bias on the content side from any of the editors trying to find consensus about how to describe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As with anything we need editors interested enough in the topic to do the work and discussion required, but dispassionate enough about the topic to achieve a neutral point of view. It's entirely possible that a religious adherent will do that and also possible that they will not. Again the context and substance will matter. I will also note that many religions have people who are biased against that religion or even prejudiced towards its adherents. Such people will have their own challenges to writing a neutral verifiable encyclopedia and may be quite prone to causing conduct issues when interacting with practitioners of that religion.

  I hope that answers the question - admittedly with an answer that is going to be context sensitive rather than absolute which is also what the principle says - because I do see conduct both in that discussion and at this noticeboard that would have caused me to warn the offending party/parties had I found it as an uninvolved administrator rather than as an arbitrator in a request that is a request for clarification. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

• I largely agree with Barkeep49. I would also argue that by and large it does not necessarily matter if User X belongs to Group Y; looking at Principle 8 of the same case, if said user is displaying repeated bias or prejudice in a topic area restrictions may need to be imposed, regardless of the underlying reason for those alleged biases. In general, though, asking if someone belongs to a group simply because they express a strong opinion or seem to have more knowledge than a casual editor is likely to be unnecessary and potentially inappropriate. Primefac (talk) 18:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
• One can be biased (both for and against a topic) without having a COI (WP:COINOTBIAS) and the way Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest is currently written is that external relationships like religious affiliation can trigger a COI but are not prima facie conflicts of interest in and of themselves (WP:EXTERNALREL). The Noleander case principle from thirteen years ago is not out of line with WP:COI, and if the intention behind COI itself needs to change it is not ArbCom that should be attempting to do so. - Aoidh (talk) 20:37, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
• I am alarmed by the rise in religious bigotry on Misplaced Pages over the past few months. Part of this trend is the insistence by a small group of vocal editors that people reveal their religion as a way of winning content disputes. It is wrong and it needs to stop. --Guerillero 14:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Elinruby: The middle of a thread about another topic is not the place for new dispute resolution. Please take your complaints to either the community at a notice board or to the committee at WP:ARC -- Guerillero 20:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with Aoidh and Guerillero. I want to emphasise that users should never ask for identifying information of other users, including their religion. Instead, the question they can ask others is, "Do you have a WP:COI with this topic?" It is also important to emphasise that, under current Misplaced Pages policy, an editor with a COI on a topic is allowed to edit articles in which they have a COI with, as long as they have disclosed any contributions covered under WP:PAID and they adhere to Misplaced Pages's policies and procedures, including having a neutral point of view in their contributions. Z1720 (talk) 16:07, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I have to admit, I have trouble not being a mouthy smartass when it comes to Fae. I guess it's one of those "you can laugh or you can cry" things, it seems obvious to me that he should've been thrown out of the movement entirely a long time ago, but Commons is so broken as a community that they continue to tolerate his nonsense so long as he continues to make a big deal of the sheer number of robotic uploads he's made. So, I made an extremely sarcastic comment when Fae floated the idea that if the WMF wouldn't pay him, maybe he could get the general public to do so, using a "tip jar" which by my understanding is basically how OnlyFans works, yet somehow pointing that out is the most offensive thing anyone has ever said. That's what actually upset them, the rest is just Fae being Fae. And then when Rodhullandemu started acting as his attack dog that just turned the ridiculousness level up to 11. Two little peas in a pod, both playing the victim and the bully at the same time. And I freely admit that I was very dismissive of his super-dramatic overreaction to the whole thing, re-posting every word I posted on WO as "evidence" that I was directly encouraging people to physically attack his home, which is the apparent basis of this report to T&S. If they find that compelling, I guess I'm done here. If I had actually done that, I would totally deserve an office ban and whatever other ban came my way, but I'm quite certain I did no such thing.

For me, it was distressing to see Fae's outright lies and Rodhulls creepy threats spread onto en.wp by Owen Blacker, who I don't believe had any involvement in the Commons discussion and was clearly acting as Fae's proxy without doing any critical thinking about the merit of the accusations.

On the other hand, the <email posted to the wrong list> comment.... I don't know what happened there, I think in my mind I was talking to the committee, or maybe just the OS team, certainly not the full functionaries list. As you all know I often use a more informal tone on our mailing list, and somehow it slipped into another conversation where it was obviously not appropriate. It was a giant screw up and I feel like a jerk about it and have reached out to some of the other functionaries who seemed particularly distressed by it. I was recovering from covid at the time and maybe it made my brain a little ...fuzzy? That's not an excuse but maybe it's at least sort of an explanation.

To the other two points: The Lourdes incident was a good faith error that she made 50 times worse by her very public reaction to it. We've since come to an understanding, as far as I know she has accepted that I honestly meant her no harm and certainly wasn't trying to maliciously out her, and she copped to the fact that the way she approached a solution was exactly the wrong way. It's worth noting that, at that time, it did not require any advanced permissions to see the edits she had made where she self-outed. They had been visible to one and all for about five years.

The <redacted> thing, all I really said there was reiterating that we were not making a statement on <redacted> and everyone should just accept that sometimes, we just don't know what really happened.I don't feel like I let out anything that someone couldn't guess for themselves by saying <redacted> but I o dget the point that that could've gone unsaid.

I suppose I could've said nothing at all, in all honesty that is a skill I have tried to work on, when to just shut up, but I know I miss the mark sometimes. I am also trying to make myself get less screen time on the whole, It's been really bad ever since lockdown last year, and I find that it is often when I've been online all day that I say or do something that upsets people. I'm working on it, I built a tiny little campsite in my backyard and have been thoroughly enjoying sitting out there reading a book, having a campfire, or just watching the trees wave in the wind.

I do apologize if this has caused undo stress or concern to anyone, especially the <email comment>, thing, which clearly made an unpleasant situation much worse.

Feel free to share this with T&S if that seems like it would be helpful, and my apologies to Joe as well, I know he has enough crap to deal with without this.