Misplaced Pages

:Arbitration/Requests/Case: Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
< Misplaced Pages:Arbitration | Requests Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 23:31, 4 January 2015 view sourceKww (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers82,486 edits →Involved parties← Previous edit Revision as of 23:54, 4 January 2015 view source NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Administrators83,665 edits →Statement by {Non-party}: +statementNext edit →
Line 50: Line 50:
=== Statement by QuackGuru === === Statement by QuackGuru ===
=== Statement by Roxy the dog === === Statement by Roxy the dog ===
=== Statement by NuclearWarfare ===
The fact that I am commenting here is a reminder to myself that I am severely remiss in responding to several emails relating to WikiProject Medicine <small>(sorry, I'll get to them soon!)</small>. I would not necessarily consider myself an uninvolved administrator with this article, but neither am I all that involved in practice. I do hope that I have the bona fides to simply declare (without having to provide much evidence) that I have never been seen as one to be particularly sympathetic to psuedoscientific and other non-mainstream (or significant minority) points of view

With that said, having read the talk page oldid that ] links to, I am afraid I do not view things from his perspective. For example, Kww portrays ] as someone who is "attempting to block a reflection of scientific consensus in the article" because they are attempting to "portray acupuncture as having medical legitimacy". That simply makes no sense to me; I read the talk page as indicating that A1candidate is not nearly convinced (by sources linked to and provided on that talk page) that acupuncture has significant medical benefits but that it does have some valid mechanism of action and it makes no sense to call it psuedoscientific, unlike acupuncture's parent, ]. As an analogy, there is no scientific evidence for ] as a whole, but subcomponents such as yoga and (standard, not Transcendental) meditation have lots of backing.

Do I see some editors who should be banned on ]? Yes. But I don't think an ArbCom case will be the best venue for that. I think what is seriously needed is a set of reports to be filed at ] with actual enforcement of the "Decorum" provisions of ]. I see that as working far more effectively than a full case.

I won't necessarily be watching this case request very closely, but people are welcome to drop me a note if they would like me to expand on any part of my statement. Best, '''<font color="navy">]</font>''' ''(<font color="green">]</font>)'' 23:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

=== Statement by {Non-party} === === Statement by {Non-party} ===
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information. Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Revision as of 23:54, 4 January 2015

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Acupuncture   4 January 2015 {{{votes}}}
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Arbitrator motions
Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024
Shortcuts

About this page

Use this page to request the committee open an arbitration case. To be accepted, an arbitration request needs 4 net votes to "accept" (or a majority).

Arbitration is a last resort. WP:DR lists the other, escalating processes that should be used before arbitration. The committee will decline premature requests.

Requests may be referred to as "case requests" or "RFARs"; once opened, they become "cases". Before requesting arbitration, read the arbitration guide to case requests. Then click the button below. Complete the instructions quickly; requests incomplete for over an hour may be removed. Consider preparing the request in your userspace.

To request enforcement of an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To clarify or change an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.


File an arbitration request


Guidance on participation and word limits

Unlike many venues on Misplaced Pages, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.

  • Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
  • In general. Most submissions to the Arbitration Committee (including statements in arbitration case requests and ARCAs and evidence submissions in arbitration cases) are limited to 500 words, plus 50 diffs. During the evidence phase of an accepted case, named parties are granted an automatic extension to 1000 words plus 100 diffs.
  • Sectioned discussion. To facilitate review by arbitrators, you should edit only in your own section. Address your submission to arbitrators, not to other participants. If you wish to rebut, clarify, or otherwise refer to another submission for the benefit of arbitrators, you may do so within your own section. (More information.)
  • Requesting an extension. You may request a word limit extension in your submission itself (using the {{@ArbComClerks}} template) or by emailing clerks-l@lists.wikimedia.org. In your request, you should briefly (in 1-2 sentences) include (a) why you need additional words and (b) a broad outline of what you hope to discuss in your extended submission. The Committee endeavors to act upon extension requests promptly and aims to offer flexibility where warranted.
    • Members of the Committee may also grant extensions when they ask direct questions to facilitate answers to those questions.
  • Refactoring statements. You should write carefully and concisely from the start. It is impermissible to rewrite a statement to shorten it after a significant amount of time has passed or after anyone has responded to it (see Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines § Editing own comments), so it is often advisable to submit a brief initial statement to leave room to respond to other users if the need arises.
  • Sign submissions. In order for arbitrators and other participants to understand the order of submissions, sign your submission and each addition (using ~~~~).
  • Word limit violations. Submissions that exceed the word limit will generally be "hatted" (collapsed), and arbitrators may opt not to consider them.
  • Counting words. Words are counted on the rendered text (not wikitext) of the statement (i.e., the number of words that you would see by copy-pasting the page section containing your statement into a text editor or word count tool). This internal gadget may also be helpful.
  • Sanctions. Please note that members and clerks of the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions when necessary to promote the effective functioning of the arbitration process.

General guidance

  • This page is for statements, not discussion.
  • Arbitrators or clerks may refactor or delete statements, e.g. off-topic or unproductive remarks, without warning.
  • Banned users may request arbitration via the committee contact page; don't try to edit this page.
  • Under no circumstances should you remove requests from this page, or open a case (even for accepted requests), unless you are an arbitrator or clerk.
  • After a request is filed, the arbitrators will vote on accepting or declining the case. The <0/0/0> tally counts the arbitrators voting accept/decline/recuse.
  • Declined case requests are logged at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Declined requests. Accepted case requests are opened as cases, and logged at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Cases once closed.


Acupuncture

Initiated by —Kww(talk) at 23:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Kww

I am bringing this here because any effort for me to resolve it would likely provoke wheel-warring between me and User:John, obviously an undesirable situation. This is also a holdover of our existing pseudoscience arbitrations, in terms of its application to acupuncture.

Acupuncture appears to have been the victim of flooding, wherein multiple studies with ambiguous results are listed in separate subsections in great prominence, all to give the false impression that the effectiveness of acupuncture is under wide and serious study. It's not: acupuncture is generally viewed as a placebo treatment with no scientific foundation. This summarizes it well: several thousand studies have failed to show any consistent application in which acupuncture is beneficial. Traditional Chinese medicine, the foundation of acupuncture, is also recognized as pseudoscience, a classification which has been mightily resisted by pro-Acupuncture editors. A quick read through that last link will demonstrate how unlikely it is for forward progress to be made. Accordingly, our section on the effectiveness of acupuncture should say just that: not shown to be consistently effective for anything and lacking in any theoretical foundation.

There's no doubt that the pro-science editors have not behaved admirably, but they are faced with entrenched editors that are padding the article with any study that presents acupuncture in a favourable light, misrepresenting those studies, lying about discussions that have taken place elsewhere. John's reaction has been to try to deal with this as an NPOV issue, requiring discussion between the editors: clearly fruitless at this point. He has focused his attention on QuackGuru and Roxy the dog, parties that have, at times, acted poorly out of sheer frustration.

My view is diametrically to John's: that it is our role as administrators to actively detect the users that are attempting to block a reflection of scientific consensus in the article, block them as appropriate, and help provide an environment that will allow our scientifically-minded editors to prevail. I would resolve this problem by blocking or topic-banning LesVegas, Jayaguru-Shishya, A1candidate, and, indeed, any and all editors that attempted to portray acupuncture as having medical legitimacy. This is the Martinphi vs. ScienceApologist problem all over again, and dealing with these people as legitimate editors leads to unsatisfactory results.

I bring this here primarily because it is a systemic problem, and a legacy of the inadequacy of the earlier Arbcom decision, which tells the project that we should strive to be in line with scientific consensus, but does not specifically tell adminstrators to deal with editors asymmetrically: blocking and banning those that would undermine that scientific consensus while encouraging those that attempt to support it.

Statement by John

Statement by LesVegas

Statement by Jayaguru-Shishya

Statement by A1candidate

Statement by QuackGuru

Statement by Roxy the dog

Statement by NuclearWarfare

The fact that I am commenting here is a reminder to myself that I am severely remiss in responding to several emails relating to WikiProject Medicine (sorry, I'll get to them soon!). I would not necessarily consider myself an uninvolved administrator with this article, but neither am I all that involved in practice. I do hope that I have the bona fides to simply declare (without having to provide much evidence) that I have never been seen as one to be particularly sympathetic to psuedoscientific and other non-mainstream (or significant minority) points of view

With that said, having read the talk page oldid that Kww links to, I am afraid I do not view things from his perspective. For example, Kww portrays A1candidate as someone who is "attempting to block a reflection of scientific consensus in the article" because they are attempting to "portray acupuncture as having medical legitimacy". That simply makes no sense to me; I read the talk page as indicating that A1candidate is not nearly convinced (by sources linked to and provided on that talk page) that acupuncture has significant medical benefits but that it does have some valid mechanism of action and it makes no sense to call it psuedoscientific, unlike acupuncture's parent, Traditional Chinese Medicine. As an analogy, there is no scientific evidence for Ayurveda as a whole, but subcomponents such as yoga and (standard, not Transcendental) meditation have lots of backing.

Do I see some editors who should be banned on Talk:Acupuncture? Yes. But I don't think an ArbCom case will be the best venue for that. I think what is seriously needed is a set of reports to be filed at WP:AE with actual enforcement of the "Decorum" provisions of WP:AC/DS. I see that as working far more effectively than a full case.

I won't necessarily be watching this case request very closely, but people are welcome to drop me a note if they would like me to expand on any part of my statement. Best, NW (Talk) 23:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

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

Acupuncture: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/0>-Acupuncture">

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)